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BOOKS BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN 


Pushing to the Front; or, 
Success Under Dificulties 


12mo, with portraits, $1.50 


Rising in the World; or, 
Architects of Fate 


12mo, with portraits, $1.50 


The Secret of Achievement 


12mo, with portraits, $1.50 


Talks with Great Workers 


12mo, with portraits, $1.50 


Success Booklets 


CHARACTER OPPORTUNITY 
CHEERFULNESS IRON WILL 
GOOD MANNERS ECONOMY 


12mo, ornamental white binding 
Per volume, 35 cents 


12mo, cloth, illustrated with portraits 
Per volume, 50 cents 


hive Re OLINE SS 


AS A LIFE POWER 


BY 


ORISON SWETT MARDEN 


Author of ** Pushing to the Front,’’ ‘The Secret of 
Achievement,” etc.; and Editor of ‘* Success,”” 


FIFTEENTH THOUSAND 


NEW YORK 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


"Copyright, 1899 ey iM 
adenine tid at htiiagen te ley 


' 
i ¥ 


A FOREWORD. 


nd 


The soul-consuming and friction-wearing tendency of 
this hurrying, grasping, competing age is the excuse for 
this booklet. Is it not an absolute necessity to get rid 
of all irritants, of everything which worries and frets, and 
which brings discord into so many lives? Cheerfulness 
has a wonderful lubricating power. It lengthens the 
life of human machinery, as lubricants lengthen the life 
of inert machinery. Life’s delicate bearings should not 
be carelessly ground away for mere lack of oil. What 
is needed is a habit of cheerfulness, to enjoy every day 
as we go along; not to fret and stew all the week, 
and then expect to make up for it Sunday or on some 
‘holiday. It is not a question of mirth so much as of 
cheerfulness ; not alone that which accompanies laughter, 
but serenity,— a calm, sweet soul-contentment and inward 
peace. Are there not multitudes of people who have the 
“blues,” who yet wish well to their neighbors? They 
would say kind words and make the world happier — 
but they “have n’t the time.”” To lead them to look on 
the sunny side of things, and to take a little time every 
day to speak pleasant words, is the message of the hour. 


THe AUTHOR. 


In the preparation of these pages, amid the daily 
demands of journalistic work, the author has been 
assisted by Mr. E. P. Tenney, of Cambridge. 


(3) 


Vil. 


WABLE- OF. CONTENTS. 


WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE LAUGHS . 
THE LAUGH CURE 
A CHEAP MEDICINE 
WHY DON’T YOU LAUGH? 
THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS 
A WORRYING WOMAN 
Our HAWAIIAN PARADISE . 
A WEATHER BREEDER 
‘¢ WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?” . ; 
LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE . 
OILING YOUR Business MACHINERY 
SINGING AT YOUR WoRK 
Goop HumMoR : 
‘¢LE DIABLE EST Morr” uh 
TAKING YOUR FuN EveEery DAY AS YOU DO YOUR 
WorK 
UNWORKED JOY Mantes 
THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD 
FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK. 
CHARLES LAMB . 
JOHN B. GouGH 
PHILLIPS BROOKS 
‘¢ LOOKING PLEASANT "— A igcheee TO BE WORKED 
FROM THE INSIDE i 
Worth Five HUNDRED oer 
THE ‘‘Don’r Worry” SOCIETY 
A PLEASURE Book 
THE SUNSHINE-MAN. ..... .» 


(5) 


CHEERFULNESS AS A LIFE POWER. 


I. WHAT VANDERBILT PAID FOR TWELVE 
LAUGHS. 


Witi1am K. VANDERBILT, when he last visited Con- 
stantinople, one day invited Coquelin the elder, so cele- 
brated for his powers as a mimic, who happened to be in 
the city at the time, to give a private recital on board his 
yacht, lying in the Bosphorus. Coquelin spoke three of 
his monologues. A few days afterwards Coquelin received 
the following memorandum from the millionaire : — 

“ You have brought tears to our eyes and laughter 
to our hearts. Since all philosophers are agreed that 
laughing is preferable to weeping, your account with me 
stands thus : — 


‘‘ For tears, six times . : f $600 
“For laughter, twelve times . . 2,400 


$3,000 
‘‘ Kindly acknowledge receipt of enclosed check.” 


“JT find nonsense singularly refreshing,” said Talley- 
rand. There is good philosophy in the saying, “ Laugh 
and grow fat.” If everybody knew the power of laughter 
as a health tonic and lfe prolonger the tinge of sadness 
which now clouds the American face would largely dis- 


(7) 


8 CHEERFULNESS. 


appear, and many physicians would find their occupation 
gone. 

The power of laughter was given us to serve a wise 
purpose in our economy. It is Nature’s device for 
exercising the internal organs and giving us pleasure at 
the same time. | 

Laughter begins in the lungs and diaphragm, setting 
the liver, stomach, and other internal organs into a quick, 
jelly-like vibration, which gives a pleasant sensation and 
exercise, almost equal to that of horseback riding. 
During digestion, the movements of the stomach are 
similar to churning. Every time you take a full breath, 
oz when you cachinnate well, the diaphragm descends 
and gives the stomach an extra squeeze and shakes it. 
Frequent laughing sets the stomach to dancing, hurrying 
up the digestive process. The heart beats faster, and 
sends the blood bounding through the body. “There is 
not,” says Dr. Green, “one remotest corner or little inlet 
of the minute blood-vessels of the human body that does 
not feel some wavelet from the convulsions occasioned by 
a good hearty laugh.” In medical terms, it stimulates the 
vasomotor centers, and the spasmodic contraction of the 
blood-vessels causes the blood to flow quickly. Laughter 
accelerates the respiration, and gives warmth and glow to 
the whole system. It brightens the eye, increases the 
perspiration, expands the chest, forces the poisoned air 
from the least-used lung cells, and tends to restore that 
exquisite poise or balance which we call health, which 
results from the harmonious action of all the functions 
of the body. This delicate poise, which may be destroyed 
by a sleepless night, a piece of bad news, by grief or 
anxiety, is often wholly restored by a good hearty laugh. 

There is, therefore, sound sense in the caption, — 


CHEERFULNESS. 9 


“ Cheerfulness as a Life Power,” — relating as it does to 
the physical life, as well as the mental and moral; and 
what we may call 


THE LAUGH CURE 


is based upon principles recognized as sound by the med- 
ical profession — so literally true is the Hebrew proverb 
that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” 

‘‘ Mirth is God’s medicine,” said Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes; “everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, 
moroseness, anxiety, — all the rust of life,— ought to 
be scoured off by the oil of mirth.” Elsewhere he says: 
“Tf you are making choice of a physician be sure you 
get one with a cheerful and serene countenance.” 

Is not a jolly physician of greater service than his 
pills ? Dr. Marshall Hall frequently prescribed “cheer- 
fulness ” for his patients, saying that it is better than 
anything to be obtained at the apothecary’s. 

In Western New York, Dr. Burdick was known as the 
«“ Laughing Doctor.” He always presented the happiest 
kind of a face; and his good humor was contagious. He 
dealt sparingly in drugs, yet was very successful. _ 

The London “ Lancet,” the most eminent medical 
journal in the world, gives the following scientific testi- 
mony to the value of jovialty :— 

“This power of ‘good spirits’ is a matter of high 
moment to the sick and weakly. To the former, it may 
mean the ability to survive; to the latter, the possibility 
of outliving, or living in spite of, a disease. It is, there- 
fore, of the greatest importance to cultivate the highest 
and most buoyant frame of mind which the conditions 
will admit. The same energy which takes the form of 
mental activity is vital to the work of the organism. 


10 CHEERFULNESS. 


Mental influences affect the system; and a joyous spirit 
not only relieves pain, but increases the momentum of 
life in the body.” 

Dr. Ray, superintendent of Butler Hospital for the 
Insane, says in one of his reports, “ A hearty laugh is 
more desirable for mental health than any exercise of 
the reasoning faculties.” 

Grief, anxiety, and fear are great enemies of human 
life. A depressed, sour, melancholy soul, a life which 
has ceased to believe in its own sacredness, its own power, 
its own mission, a life which sinks into querulous egotism 
or vegetating aimlessness, has become crippled and use- 
less. We should fight against every influence which 
tends to depress the mind, as we would against a temp- 
tation to crime. It is undoubtedly true that, as a rule, 
the mind has power to lengthen the period of youthful 
and mature strength and beauty, preserving and renewing 
physical life by a stalwart mental health. 

I read the other day of a man in a neighboring city 
who was given up to die; his relatives were sent for, and 
they watched at his bedside. But an old acquaintance, 
who called to see him, assured him smilingly that he was 
all right and would soon be well. He talked in such 
a strain that the sick man was forced to laugh; and the 
effort so roused his system that he rallied, and he was 
soon well again. 

Was it not Shakespere who said that a light heart lives 
long ? 

The San Francisco “ Argonaut” says that a woman in 
Milpites, a victim of almost crushing sorrow, despond- 
ency, indigestion, insomnia, and kindred ills, determined 
to throw off the gloom which was making life so heavy 
a burden to her, and established a rule that she would 


CHEERFULNESS. ai BD | 


laugh at least three times a day, whether occasion was pre- 
sented or not; so she trained herself to laugh heartily at 
the least provocation, and would retire to her room and 
make merry by herself. She was soon in excellent 
health and buoyant spirits; her home became a sunny, 
cheerful abode. | 

It was said, by one who knew this woman well, and 
who wrote an account of the case for a popular maga- 
zine, that at first her husband and children were amused 
at her, and while they respected her determination be- 
cause of the griefs she bore, they did not enter into the 
spirit of the plan. “ But after awhile,” said this woman 
to me, with a smile, only yesterday, “ the funny part of 
the idea struck my husband, and he began to laugh every 
time we spoke of it. And when he came home, he would 
ask me if I had had my ‘ regular laughs; ’ and he would 
laugh when he asked the question, and again when I 
answered it. My children, then very young, thought 
‘mamma’s notion very queer,’ but they laughed at it just 
the same. Gradually, my children told other children, 
and they told their parents. My husband spoke of it to 
our friends, and I rarely met one of them but he or she 
would laugh and ask me, ‘ How many of your laughs have 
you had to-day?’ Naturally, they laughed when they 
asked, and of course that set me laughing. When I 
formed this apparently strange habit I was weighed down 
with sorrow, and my rule simply lifted me out of it. I 
had suffered the most acute indigestion; for years I 
have not known what it is. Headaches were a daily 
dread; for over six years I have not had a single pain in 
the head. My home seems different to me, and I feel a 
thousand times more interest in its work. My husband 
is a changed man. My children are called ‘the girls 


12 CHEERFULNESS. 


who are always laughing,’ and, altogether, my rule has 
proved an inspiration which has worked wonders.” 

The queen of fashion, however, says that we must never 
laugh out loud; but since the same tyrannical mistress 
kills. people by corsets, indulges in cosmetics, and is out 
all night at dancing parties, and in China pinches up the 
women’s feet, I place much less confidence in her views 
upon the laugh cure forhuman woes. Yet in all civilized 
countries it is a fundamental principle of refined man- 
ners not to be ill-timed and unreasonably noisy and 
boisterous in mirth. One who is wise will never violate 
the proprieties of well-bred people. 

“Yet,” says a wholesome writer upon health, “ we 
should do something more than to simply cultivate a 
cheerful, hopeful spirit, — we should cultivate a spirit of 
mirthfulness that is not only easily pleased and smiling, 
but that indulges in hearty, hilarious laughter; and if 
this faculty is not well marked in our organization we 
should cultivate it, being well assured that hearty, body- 
shaking laughter will do us good.” 

Ordinary good looks depend on one’s sense of humor, — 
‘‘a merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.” Joy- 
fulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh 
makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody © 
around us, and puts us into closer touch with what is 
best and brightest in our lot in life. 

Physiology tells the story. The great sympathetic 
nerves are closely allied; and when one set carries bad 
news to the head, the nerves reaching the stomach are 
affected, indigestion comes. on, and one’s countenance 
becomes doleful. Laugh when you can; it is 


CHEERFULNESS. 13 


A CHEAP MEDICINE. 


Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. The 
eminent surgeon Chavasse says that we ought to begin 
with the babies and train children to habits of mirth : — 

«Encourage your child to be merry and laugh aloud; a 
good hearty laugh expands the chest and makes the 
blood bound merrily along. Commend me to a good 
laugh, — not to a little snickering laugh, but to one that 
will sound right through the house. It will not only do 
your child good, but will be a benefit to all who hear, 
and be an important means of driving the blues away 
from a dwelling. Merriment is very catching, and 
spreads in a remarkable manner, few being able to resist 
its contagion. A hearty laugh is delightful harmony ; 
indeed, it is the best of all music.” ‘Children without 
hilarity,” says an eminent author, “will never amount to 
much. ‘Trees without blossoms will never bear fruit.” 

Hufeland, physician to the King of Prussia, commends 
the ancient custom of jesters at the king’s table, whose 
quips and cranks would keep the company in a roar. 

Did not Lycurgus set up the god of laughter in the 
Spartan eating-halls? There is no table sauce like 
laughter at meals. It is the great enemy of dyspepsia. 

How wise are the words of the acute Chamfort, that 
the most completely lost of all days is the one in which 
we have not laughed! 

« A crown, for making the king laugh,” was one of 
the items of expense which the historian Hume found in 
a manuscript of King Edward II. 

“Tt is a good thing to laugh, at any rate,” said Dryden, 
the poet, “and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an in 
strument of happiness.” 


14 CHEERFULNESS. 


“T live,” said Laurence Sterne, one of the greatest of 
English humorists, “in a constant endeavor to fence 
against the infirmities of ill health and other evils by 
mirth ; I am persuaded that, every time a man smiles, — 
but much more so when he laughs, — it adds something 
to his fragment of life.” 

‘“‘Give me an honest laugher,” said Sir Walter Scott, 
and he was himself one of the happiest men in the world, 
with a kind word and pleasant smile for every one, and 
everybody loved him. 

“How much les in laughter!” exclaimed the critic 
Carlyle. “It is the cipher-key wherewith we decipher 
the whole man. Some men wear an everlasting barren. 
simper; in the smile of others lies the cold glitter, as of 
ice; the fewest are able to laugh what can be called 
laughing, but only sniff and titter and snicker from the 
throat outward, or at least produce some whiffing, husky 
cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool. Of 
none such comes good.” 

‘The power to laugh, to cease work and begin to 
frolic and make merry in forgetfulness of all the conflict 
of life,” says Hein Morgan, “is a divine bestow- 
ment upon man.’ 

Happy, then, is the man, who may well tel to him- 
self over his good luck, who can answer the old question, 
‘‘ How old are you?” by Sambo’s reply : — 

“Tf you reckon by the years, sah, I’se twenty-five ; but 
if you goes by the fun I’s ’ad, I guess I’s a hundred.” 


WHY-DON’T YOU LAUGH ? 
From the ‘‘Independent.” 


‘¢ Why don’t you laugh, young man, when troubles come, 
Instead of sitting ’round so sour and glum? 


CHEERFULNESS. 


You cannot have all play, 
And sunshine every day ; 
When troubles come, I say, why don’t you laugh? 


“‘ Why don’t you laugh? ’T will ever help to soothe 
The aches and pains. No road in life is smooth; 

There ’s many an unseen bump, 

And many a hidden stump 
O’er which you’ll have to jump. Why don’t you laugh? 


‘¢ Why don’t you laugh? Don’t let your spirits wilt; 
Don’t sit and cry because the milk you’ve spilt; 

If you would mend it now, 

Pray let me tell you how: 
Just milk another cow! Why don’t you laugh? 


‘¢ Why don’t you laugh, and make us all laugh, too, 
And keep us mortals all from getting blue? 

A laugh will always win; 

If you can’t laugh, just grin, — 
Come on, let’s all join in! Why don’t you laugh? 


15 


16 CHEERFULNESS. 


Il. — THE CURE FOR AMERICANITIS. 


Prince Wolkonsky, during a visit to this country, de- 
clared that “ Business is the alpha and omega of Ameri- 
can life. There is no pleasure, no joy, no satisfaction. 
There is no standard except that of profit. There is no 
other country where they speak of a man as worth so 
many dollars. In other countries they live to enjoy life; 
here they exist for business.” A Boston merchant cor- 
roborated this statement by saying he was anxious all 
day about making money, and worried all night for fear 
he should lose what he had made. 

“Jn the United States,’’ a distinguished traveler once 
said, “there is everywhere comfort, but no joy. The 
ambition of getting more and fretting over what is lost 
absorb life.” 

«Every man we meet looks as if he’d gone out to 
borrow trouble, with plenty of it on hand,” said a French 
lady, upon arriving in New York. 

“The Americans are the best-fed, the best-clad, and 
the best-housed people in the world,” says another wit- 
ness, “but they are the most anxious; they hug pos- 
sible calamity to their breasts.” 

“ T question if care and doubt ever wrote their names 
so legibly on the faces of any other population,” says 
Emerson; “old age begins in the nursery.” 

How quickly we Americans exhaust life! With what 
panting haste we pursue everything! Every man you 
meet seems to be late for an appointment. Hurry is 
stamped in the wrinkles of the national face. We are 


CHEERFULNESS. 17 


men of action; we go faster and faster as the years go 
by, speeding our machinery to the utmost. Bent forms, 
prematurely gray hair, restlessness and discontent, are 
characteristic of our age and people. We earn our 
bread, but cannot digest it; and our over-stimulated 
nerves soon become irritated, and touchiness follows, — 
so fatal to a business man, and so annoying in society. 

‘“‘It is not work that kills men,” says Beecher; “ it is 

worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on 
- aman than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the 
blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, 
but friction.” | 

It is not so much the great sorrows, the great burdens, 
the great hardships, the great calamities, that cloud over 
the sunshine of life, as the little petty vexations, insig- 
nificant anxieties and fear, the little daily dyings, which 
render our lives unhappy, and destroy our mental elas- 
ticity, without advancing our life-work one inch. 
«“ Anxiety never yet bridged any chasm.” 

“What,” asks Dr. George W. Jacoby, in an ‘ Evening 
Post” interview, “is the ultimate physical effect of 
worry ? Why, the same as that of a fatal bullet-wound 
or sword-thrust. Worry kills as surely, though not so 
quickly, as ever gun or dagger did, and more people have 
died in the last century from sheer worry than have been 
killed in battle.” 

Dr. Jacoby is one of the foremost of American brain 
doctors. “The investigations of the neurologists,” he 
says, ‘‘ have laid bare no secret of Nature in recent years 
more startling and interesting than the discovery that 
worry kills.” This is the final, up-to-date word. <“ Not 
only is it known,” resumes the great neurologist, count- 
ing off his words, as it were, on his finger-tips, ‘“ that 


18 CHEERFULNESS. 


worry kills, but the most minute details of its murderous 
methods are familiar to modern scientists. It is a common 
belief of those who have made a special study of the 
science of brain diseases that hundreds of deaths attrib- 
uted to other causes each year are due simply to worry. 
In plain, untechnical language, worry works its irrepar- 
able injury through certain cells of the brain life. The 
insidious inroads upon the system can ‘be best likened to 
the constant falling of drops of water in one spot. In 
the brain it is the insistent, never-lost idea, the single, 
constant thought, centered upon one subject, which in the 
course of time destroys the brain cells. The healthy brain 
can cope with occasional worry; it is the iteration and 
reiteration of disquieting thoughts which the cells of the 
brain cannot successfully combat. 

‘“‘The mechanical effect of worry is much the same as 
if the skull were laid bare and the brain exposed to the 
action of a little hammer beating continually upon it day 
after day, until the membranes are disintegrated and the 
normal functions disabled. The maddening thought that 
will not be downed, the haunting, ever-present idea that 
is not or cannot be banished by a supreme effort of the 
will, is the theoretical hammer which diminishes the 
vitality of the sensitive nerve organisms, the minuteness 
of which makes them visible to the eye only under a 
powerful microscope. The ‘worry,’ the thought, the 
single idea grows upon one as time goes on, until the 
worry victim cannot throw it off. Through this, one set 
or area of cells is affected. The cells are intimately con- 
nected, joined together by little fibres, and they in turn 
are in close relationship with the cells of the other parts 
of the brain. 

«“ Worry is itself a species of monomania. No mental 


CHEERFULNESS. 19 


attitude is more disastrous to personal achievement, 
personal happiness, and personal usefulness in the world, 
than worry and its twin brother, despondency. The 
remedy for the evil lies in training the will to cast off 
cares and seek a change of occupation, when the first 
warning is sounded by Nature in intellectual lassitude. 
Relaxation is the certain foe of worry, and ‘ don’t fret’ 
one of the healthiest of maxims.’ 

In a life of constant worrying, we are as much behind 
the times as if we were to go back to use the first steam 
engines that wasted ninety per cent. of the energy of the 
coal, instead of having an electric dynamo that utilizes 
ninety per cent. of the power. Some people waste a 
large percentage of their energy in fretting and stewing, 
in useless anxiety, in scolding, in complaining about the 
weather and the perversity of inanimate things. Others 
convert nearly all of their energy into power and moral 
sunshine. He who has learned the true art of living will 
not waste his energies in friction, which accomplishes 
nothing, but merely grinds out the machinery of life. 

It must be relegated to the debating societies to 
determine which is the worse — A Nervous Man or 


A WORRYING WOMAN. 


“1 ’m awfully worried this morning,” said one woman. 
“Whatisit?” ‘Why, I thought of something to worry 
about last night, and now I can’t remember it.” 

A famous actress once said: “ Worry is the foe of 
all beauty.” She might have added: “It is the foe to 
all health.” 

“Tt seems so heartless in me, if I do not worry about 
my children,” said one mother. 

Women nurse their troubles, as they do their babies. 


20 CHEERFULNESS. 


‘Troubles grow larger,’ said Lady Holland, “by 
nursing.” 

The White Knight who carried about a mousetrap, 
lest he be troubled with mice upon his journeys, was 
not unlike those who anticipate their burdens. 

“He grieves,” says Seneca, “more than is necessary, 
who grieves before it is necessary.” 

“My children,” said a dying man, “during my long 
life I have had a great many troubles, most. of which 
never happened.” A prominent business man in Phila- 
delphia said that his father worried for twenty-five years 
over an anticipated misfortune which never arrived. 

We try to grasp too much of life at once; since we 
think of it as a whole, instead of living one day at a time. 
Life is a mosaic, and each tiny piece must be cut and set 
with skill, first one piece, then another. 

A clock would be of no use as a time-keeper if it 
should become discouraged and come to a standstill by 
calculating its work a year ahead, as the clock did in 
Jane Taylor’s fable. It is not the troubles of to-day, but 
those of to-morrow and next week and next year, that 
whiten our heads, wrinkle our faces, and bring us to a 
standstill. 

“There is such a thing,” said Uncle Eben, “as too 
much foresight. People get to figuring what might hap- 
pen year after next, and let the fire go out and catch 
their death of cold, right where they are.” 

Nervous prostration is seldom the result cf present 
trouble or work, but of work and trouble anticipated. 
Mental exhaustion comes to those who look ahead, and 
climb mountains before reaching them. Resolutely build 
a wall about to-day, and live within the inclosure. The 

past nay have been hard, sad, or wrong, — but it is over. 


CHEERFULNESS. 2b 


Why not take a turn about? Instead of worrying 
over unforeseen misfortune, set out with all your soul to 
rejoice in the unforeseen blessings of all your coming 
days. “I find the gayest castles in the air that were 
ever piled,” says Emerson, “far better for comfort and 
for use than the dungeons in the air that are daily dug 
and caverned out by grumbling, discontented people.” 

What is this world but as you take it? Thackeray 
calls the world a looking-glass that gives back the reflec- 
tion of one’s own face. “Frown at it, and it will look 
sourly upon you; laugh at it, and it is a jolly com- 
panion.” 

“ There is no use in talking,” said a woman. “ Every 
time I move, I vow I’l] never move again. Such neigh- 
bors as I get in with! Seems as though they grow 
worse and worse.” ‘Indeed ?” replied her caller; “ per- 
haps you take the worst neighbor with you when you 
move.” 

‘In the sudden thunder-storm of Independence Day,” 
Says a news correspondent, “we were struck by the con- 
trast between two women, each of whom had had some 
trying experience with the weather. One came through 
the rain and hail to take refuge at the railway station, 
under the swaying and uncertain shelter of an escorting 
man’s umbrella. Her skirts were soaked to the knees, her 
pink ribbons were limp, the purple of the flowers on her 
hat ran in streaks down the white silk. And yet, though 
she was a poor girl and her holiday finery must have been 
relatively costly, she made the best of it with a smile 
and cheerful words. The other was well sheltered; but 
she took the disappointment of her hopes and the pos- 
sibility of a little spattering from a leaky window with 
frowns and fault-finding.” 


Dy CHEERFULNESS. 


‘‘ Cries little Miss Fret, 
In a very great pet: 
‘JT hate this warm weather; it’s horrid to tan! 
It scorches my nose, 
And it blisters my toes, 
And wherever I go I must carry a fan.’ 


** Chirps little Miss Laugh: 
‘Why, I could n’t tell half 
The fun I am having this bright summer day! 
I sing through the hours, 
I cull pretty flowers, 
And ride like a queen on the avant gute hay.’” 


Happily a new era has of late opened for our worried 
housekeepers, who spend their time in “ the half-frantic 
dusting of corners, spasmodic sweeping, impatient snatch- 
ing or pushing aside obstacles in the room, hurrying and 
skurrying upstairs and down cellar.” “It is not,” says 
Prentice Mulford, “the work that exhausts them, —it is 
the mental condition they are in that makes so many old 
and haggard at forty.” All that is needful now to ease 
up their burdens is to go to 


OUR HAWAIIAN PARADISE. 


A newspaper correspondent, Annie Laurie, has told us 
all about the new kind of American girls just added to 
our country : — 

‘‘ They are as straight as an arrow, and walk as queens 
walk in fairy stories; they have great braids of sleek, 
black hair, soft brown eyes, and gleaming white teeth ; 
they can swim and ride and sing; and they are brown 
with a skin that shines like bronze. . . . There isn’t 
a worried woman in Hawaii. The women there can’t 
worry. They don’t know how. They eat and sing and 


CHEERFULNESS. 23 


laugh, and see the sun and the moon set, and possess their 
souls in smiling peace. 

“Tf a Hawaii woman has a good dinner, she laughs 
and invites her friends to eat it with her; if she has n’t 
a good dinner, she laughs and goes to sleep, — and forgets 
to be hungry. She doesn’t have to worry about what 
the people in the downstairs flat will think if they don’t 
see the butcher’s boy arrive on time. If she can earn 
the money, she buys a nice, new, glorified Mother Hub- 
bard; and, if she can’t get it, she throws the old one into 
the surf and washes it out, puts a new wreath of fresh 
flowers in her hair, and starts out to enjoy the morning 
and the breezes thereof. 

«They are not earnest workers; they haven’t the 
slightest idea that they were put upon earth to reform 
the universe, —they’re just happy. They run across 
great stretches of clear, white sand, washed with resplen- 
dent purple waves, and, when the little brown babies roll 
in the surf, their brown mothers run after them, laugh- 
ing and splashing like a lot of children. Or, perhaps we 
see them in gay cavalcades mounted upon garlanded 
ponies, adorned by white jasmine wreaths with roses 
and pinks. -And here in this paradise of laughter and 
light hearts and gentle music, there ’s absolutely nothing 
to do but to care for the children and old people and to 
swim orride. You couldn’t start a‘reform circle’ to 
save your life; there is n’t a jail in the place, nor a ten- 
ement quarter, and there are no outdoor poor. There 
isn’t a woman’s club in Honolulu, —notaclub. There 
was a culture circle once for a few days; a Boston woman 
who went there for her health organized it, but it in- 
terfered with afternoon nap-time, so nobody came.” 

When, hereafter, we talk about worrying women, we 


24 CHEERFULNESS. 


must take into account our Hawaiian sisters, if we will 
average up the amount of worry per capita in our nation. 


A WEATHER BREEDER. 


It is probably quite within bounds to say that one out 
of three of our American farming population, women and 
men, never enjoy a beautiful day without first reminding 
you that “It is one of those infernal weather breeders.” 

Habitual fretters see more trouble than others. They 
are never so well as their neighbors. The weather never 
suits them. The climate is trying. The winds are too 
high or too low; it is too hot or too cold, too damp or too 
dry. The roads are either muddy or dusty. 

“IT met Mr. N. one wet morning,” says Dr. John Todd; 
“and, bound as I was to make the best of it, I ventured: 

“<Good morning. This rain will be fine for your 
grass crop.’ 

“Yes, perhaps,’ he replied, ‘but it is very bad for 
corn; I don’t think we ’ll have half a crop.’ 

‘A few days later, I met him again. ‘This is a fine 
sun for corn, Mr. N.’ 

“< Yes,’ said he, ‘but it’s awful for rye; rye wants 
cold weather.’ 

“¢Qne cool morning soon after, I said: ‘ This is a capital 
day for rye.’ 

“<¢ Yes,’ he said, ‘but it is the worst kind of weather 
for corn and grass; they want heat to bring them for- 
ward.’ ” 

There are a vast number of fidgety, nervous, and 
eccentric people who live only to expect new disappoint- 
ments or to recount their old ones. 

“Impatient people,” said Spurgeon, “water their 
miseries, and hoe up their comforts.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 25 


“Let ’s see,” said a neighbor to a farmer, whose wagon 
was loaded down with potatoes, “weren’t we talking 
togéther last August?” “I believe so.” “At that 
time, you said corn was all burnt up.” “Yes.” “And 
potatoes were baking in the ground.” “Yes.” “ And 
that your district could not possibly expect more than 
half a crop.” “I remember.” <‘ Well, here you. are 
with your wagon loaded down. Things didn’t turn ont 
so badly, after all,—eh?” “Well, no-o,” said the 
farmer, as he raked his fingers through his hair, “ but I 
tell you my geese suffered awfully for want of a mud- 
hole to paddle in.” 

What is a pessimist but “a man who looks on the sun 
only as a thing that casts a shadow” ? 

In Pepys’s “ Diary ” we learn the difference between 
“eyes shut and ears open,” and “ears shut and eyes 
open.” In going from John o’ Groat’s House to Land’s 
End, a blind man would hear that the country was going 
to destruction, but a deaf man with eyes open could see 
great prosperity. 

“ T dare no more fret than curse or swear,” said John 
Wesley. 

« A discontented mortal is no more a man than discord 
is music.” 


‘¢ Why should a man whose blood is warm within 
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 

Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice 
By being peevish ? ” 


Who are the “lemon squeezers of society”? They 
are people who predict evil, extinguish hope, and see only 
the worst side, — “ people whose very look curdles the 
milk and sets your teeth on edge.’ They are often 


26 CHEERFULNESS. 


worthy people who think that pleasure is wrong; people, 
said an old divine, who lead us heavenward and stick 
pins into us all the way. They say depressing things 
and do disheartening things; they chill prayer-meetings, 
discourage charitable institutions, injure commerce, and 
kill churches; they are blowing out lights when they 
ought to be kindling them. 

A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, 
in which one jolts over every pebble; with mirth, he is like 
a chariot with springs, riding over the roughest roads and 
scarcely feeling anything but a pleasant rocking motion. 

“ Difficulties melt away before the man who carries 
about a cheerful spirit and persistently refuses to be dis- 
couraged, while they accumulate before the one who is 
always groaning over his hard luck and scanning the 
horizon for clouds not yet in sight.” 

“To one man,” says Schopenhauer, “the world is _ 
barren, dull, and superficial ; to another, rich, interesting, 
and full of meaning.” If one loves beauty and looks’ for 
it, he will see it wherever he goes. If there is music in 
his soul, he will hear it everywhere; every object in 
nature will sing to him. Two men who live in the same 
house and do the same work may not live in the same 
world.. Although they are under the same roof, one may 
see only deformity and ugliness ; to him the world is out 
of joint, everything ig cross-grained and out of sorts: 
the other is surrounded with beauty and harmony ; every- 
body is kind to him; nobody wishes him harm. These 
men see the same objects, but they do not look through 
the same glasses ; one looks through a smoked glass which 
drapes the whole world in mourning, the other looks 
through rose-colored lenses which tint everything with 
loveliness and touch it with beauty. 


CHEERFULNESS. yi 


Take two persons just home from a vacation. “One 
has positively seen nothing,and has always been robbed ; 
the landlady was a harpy, the bedroom was unhealthy, 
and the mutton was tough. The other has always found 
the coziest nooks, the cheapest houses, the best land- 
ladies, the finest views, and the best dinners.” 


‘WHAT IS AN OPTIMIST?” 


This is the question a farmer’s boy asked of his 
father. 

“¢ Well, John,” replied his father, “you know I can’t 
give ye the dictionary meanin’ of that word any more ’n I 
can of a great many others. But I’ve got a kind of an 
idee what it means. Probably you don’t remember your 
Uncle Henry ; but I guess if there ever was an optimist, 
he was one. Things was always comin’ out right with 
Henry, and especially anything hard that he had to do; 
it wa’ n’t a-goin’ to be hard, — ’t was jest kind of solid- 
pleasant. 

“Take hoein’ corn, now. If anything ever tuckered 
me out, ’t was hoein’ corn in the hot sun. But in the 
field, “long about the time I ee to lag back a little, 
Henry he’d look up an’ say : — 

«“¢ Good, Jim! When we get Hie two rows hoed, an’ 
eighteen more, the piece ’ll be half done.’ An’ he’d say 
it in such a kind of a cheerful way that I could n’t ’a’ 
ben any more tickled if the piece had been all done, — 
an’ the rest would go light enough. 

“ But the worst thing we had to do — hoein corn was 
a picnic to it — was pickin’ stones. There was no end 
to that on our old farm, if we wanted to raise anything. 
When we wa’ n’t hurried and pressed with somethin’ else, 
there was always pickin’ stones to do; and there wa’ n’t a 


28 CHEERFULNESS. 


plowin’ but what brought up a fresh crop, an’ seema os 
if the pickin’ had all to be done over again. 

“Well, you’d’ a’ thought, to hear Henry, that there 
wa’ n’t any fun in the world like pickin’ stones. We 
looked at it in a different way from anybody I ever see. 
Once, when the corn was all hud, and the grass wa’ n’t — 
fit to cut yet, an’ I ’d got all laid out to go fishin’, and 
father he up and set us to pickin’ stones up on the west 
piece, an’ I was about ready to cry, Henry he says : — 

“¢Come on, Jim. I know where there’s lots of 
nuggets.’ 

«¢ An’ what do you s’pose, now? ‘That boy had a kind 
of a game that that there field was what he called a 
plasser mining field; and he got me into it, and I could 
’a? sworn I was in Californy all day,—I had such a 
good time. 

“<Only,’ says Henry, after we ’d got through the day’s 
work, ‘the way you get rich with these nuggets is to get 
rid of ’em, instead of to get ’em.’ | -, 

“That somehow did n’t strike my fancy, but we ’d had 
play instead of work, anyway, an’ a great lot of stones 
had been rooted out of that field. 

“ An’, as I said before, I can’t give ye any dictionary 
definition of optimism; but if your Uncle Henry wa’ n’t 
an optimist, I don’t know what one is.” 

At life’s outset, says one, a cheerful optimistic tem- 
perament is worth everything. A cheerful man, who 
always “ feels first-rate,” who always looks on the bright 
side, who is ever ready to snatch victory from defeat, 
is the successful man. 

Everybody avoids the company of those who are al- 
ways grumbling, who are full of “ifs” and “ buts,” and 
““T told you so’s.” We like the man who always looks 


CHEERFULNESS. 29 


toward the sun, whether it shines or not. It is the 
cheerful, hopeful man we go to for sympathy and assist- 
ance; not the carping, gloomy critic, — who always 
thinks it is going to rain, and that we are going to have 
a terribly hot summer, or a fearful thunder-storm, or who 
is forever complaining of hard times and his hard lot. 
It is the bright, cheerful, hopeful, contented man who 
makes his way, who is respected and admired. 

Gloom and depression not only take much out of life, 
but detract greatly from the chances of winning success. 
It is the bright and cheerful spirit that wins the final 
triumph. 


LIVING UP THANKSGIVING AVENUE. | 


“T see our brother, who has just sat down, lives on 
Grumbling street,’ said a keen-witted Yorkshireman. 
“J lived there myself for some time, and never enjoyed 
good health. The air was bad, the house bad, the water 
bad ; the birds never came and sang in the street; and I 
was gloomy and sad enough. But I ‘flitted.”’ I got into 
Thanksgiving avenue; and ever since then I have had 
good health, and so have allmy family. The air is pure, 
the house good; the sun shines on it all day; the 
birds are always singing; and I am happy as I can 
live. Now, I recommend our brother to ‘flit.’ There 
are plenty of houses to let on Thanksgiving avenue; and 
he will find himself a new man if he will only come; 
and I shall be right glad to have him for a neighbor.” 

This world was not intended for a “vale of tears,” but 
as a sweet Vale of Content. Travelers are told by the 
Icelanders, who live amid the cold and desolation of al- 
most perpetual winter, that “ Iceland is the best land the 
sun shines upon.” “In the long Arctic night, the Es- 


30 CHEERFULNESS. 


kimo is blithe, and carolsome, far from tne approach of 
the white man; while amid the glorious scenery and 
Eden-like climate of Central America, the native lan- 
guages have a dozen words for pain and misery and sor- 
row, for one with any cheerful signification.” 

When a Persian king was directed by his wise men 
to wear the shirt of a contented man, the only contented 
man in the kingdom had no shirt. The most contented 
man in Boston does not live on Commonwealth avenue 
or do business on State street: he 1s poor and blind, and 
he peddles needles and thread, buttons and sewing-room 
supplies, about the streets of Boston from house to 
house. Dr. Minot J. Savage used to pity this man very 
much, and once in venturing to talk with him about his 
condition, he was utterly amazed to find that the man 
was perfectly happy. He said that he had a faithful 
wife, and a business by which he earned sufficient for 
his wants; and, if he were to complain of his lot, he 
should feel mean and contemptible. Surely, if there are 
any “solid men ” in Boston, he is one. 

Content is the magic lamp, which, according to the 
beautiful picture painted for us by Goethe, transforms 
the rude fisherman’s hut into a palace of silver; the logs, 
the floors, the roof, the furniture, everything being 
changed and gleaming with new light. 


‘¢ My crown is in my heart, not on my head; 
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, 
Nor to be seen; my crown is called content; 
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 31 


III OILING YOUR BUSINESS MACHINERY. 


Business is king. We often say that cotton is king, 
or corn is king, but with greater propriety we may say 
that the king is that great machine which is kept in 
motion by the Law of Supply and Demand: the destinies 
of all mankind are ruled by it. 

“Were the question asked,” says Stearns, “what is at 
this moment the strongest power in operation for con- 
trolling, regulating, and inciting the actions of men, 
what has most at its disposal the condition and destinies 
of the world, we must answer at once, it is business, in 
its various ranks and departments; of which commerce, 
foreign and domestic, is the most appropriate representa- 
tion. In all prosperous and advancing communities, — 
advancing in arts, knowledge, literature, and social re- 
finement, — businessisking. Other influences in society 
may be equally indispensable, and some may think ,far 
more dignified, but Business is King. The statesman 
and the scholar, the nobleman and the prince, equally 
with the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer, 
pursue their several objects only by leave granted and 
means furnished by this potentate.” 

Oil is better than sand for keeping this vast machinery 
in good running condition. Do not shovel grit or gravel 
stones upon the bearings. A tiny copper shaving in a 
wheel box, or a scratch on a journal, may set a railway 
train on fire. The running of the business world is 
damaged by whatever creates friction. 

Anxiety mars one’s work. Nobody can do his best 


a CHEERFULNESS. 


when fevered by worry. One may rush, and always be 
in great haste, and may talk about being busy, fuming 
and sweating as if he were doing ten men’s duties; and 
yet some quiet person alongside, who is moving leisurely 
and without anxious haste, is probably accomplishing 
twice as much, and doing it better. Fluster unfits one 
for good work. 

Have you not sometimes seen a business manager 
whose stiffness would serve as “a good example toa 
poker?” He acts toward his employees as the father of 
Frederick the Great did toward his subjects, caning them 
on the streets, and shouting, “I wish to be loved and not 
feared.” ‘Growl, Spitfire and Brothers,” says Talmage, 
‘‘wonder why they fail, while Messrs. Merriman and 
Warmheart succeed.” 

There is no investment a business man can make that 
will pay him a greater per cent. than patience and amia- 
bility. Good humor will sell the most goods. 

John Wanamaker’s clerks have been heard to say: 
«“ We can work better for a week after a pleasant ‘Good 
morning’ from Mr. Wanamaker.” 

This kindly disposition and cheerful manner, and a 
desire to create a pleasant feeling and diffuse good cheer 
among those who work for him, have had a great deal to 
do with the great merchant’s remarkable success. On 
the other hand, a man who easily finds fault, and is never 
generous-spirited, who never commends the work of sub- 
ordinates when he can do so justly, who is unwilling to 
brighten their hours, fails to secure the best of service. 
‘Why not try love’s way?” It will pay better, and be 
better. 

A habit of cheerfulness, enabling one to transmute 
apparent misfortunes into real blessings, is. a fortune to _ 


CHEERFULNESS. 33 


a young man or young woman just crossing the threshold 
of active life. There is nothing but ill fortune in a 
habit of grumbling, which “ requires no talent, no self: 
denial, no brains, no character.” Grumbling only makes 
an employee more uncomfortable, and may cause his dis- 
missal. No one would or should wish to make him do 
etudgingly what so many others would be glad to do in 
a cheerful spirit. 

If you dislike your position, complain to no one, least 
of all to your employer. Fill the place as it was never 
filled before. Crowd it to overflowing. Make yourself 
more competent for it. Show that you are abundantly 
worthy of better things. Express yourself in this man- 
‘ner as freely as you please, for it is the only way that 
will count. 

No one ever found the world quite as he would like it. 
You will be sure to have burdens laid upon you that be- 
long to other people, unless you are a shirk yourself; but 
don’t grumble. If the work needs doing and you can do 
it, never mind about the other one who ought to have 
done it and didn’t; do it yourself. Those workers who 
fill up the gaps, and smooth away the rough spots, and 
finish up the jobs that others leave undone,— they are 
the true peacemakers, and worth a regiment of grumblers. 

‘“ Oh, what a sunny, winsome face she has!” said a 
Christian Endeavorer, in reporting of a clerk whom he 
saw ina Bay City store. “The customers flocked about 
her like bees about a honey-bush in full bleom.” 


SINGING AT YOUR WORK. 


“Give us, therefore,’ — let us cry with Carlyle, — 
“ oh, give us the man who sings at his work! He will 
do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will 


34 CHEERFULNESS. 


persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue 
whilst he marches to music. . The very stars are said 
to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. 
Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether 
past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be 
permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit 
all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful 
because bright.” 

“It is a good sign,’ says another writer, “when 
girlish voices carol over the steaming dish-pan or the 
mending-basket, when the broom moves rhythmically, 
and the duster flourishes in time to some brisk melody. 
We are sure that the dishes shine more brightly, and 
that the sweeping and dusting and mending are more. 
satisfactory because of this running accompaniment of 
song. Father smiles when he hears his girl singing 
about her work, and mother’s tired face brightens at the 
sound. Brothers and sisters, without realizing it, per- 
haps, catch the spirit of the cheerful worker.” 

There are singing milkers in Switzerland; a milkmaid 
or man gets better wages if gifted with a good voice, 
for a cow will yield one-fifth more milk when soothed by 
a pleasing melody. 

It was said by Buffon that even sheep fatten better to 
the sound of music. And when field-hands are singing, 
as you sometimes hear them in the old country, you may 
be sure the labor is lightened. 

It is Mrs. Howitt who has told us of the musical bells 
of the farm teams in a rural district in England : — “ It 
was no regular tune, but a delicious melody in that soft, 
sunshiny air, which was filled at the same time with the 
song of birds. Angela had heard all kinds of music in 
London, but this was unlike anything she had heard 


CHEERFULNESS. 35 


before, so soft, and sweet, and gladsome. On it came, 
ringing, ringing as softly as flowing water. The boys 
and grandfather knew what it meant. Then it came in 
sight, — the farm team going to the mill with sacks of 
corn to be ground, each horse with a little string of bells 
to its harness. On they came, the handsome, well-cared- 
for creatures, nodding their heads as they stepped along; 
and at every step the cheerful and cheering melody rang 
out. 

*¢¢ Do all horses down here have bells ?’ asked Angela. 

«‘¢ By no means,’ replied her grandfather. ‘They cost 
something ; but if we can make labor easier to a horse 
by giving him a little music, which he loves, he is less 
worn by his work, and that is a saving worth thinking 
of. A horse is a generous, noble-spirited animal, and 
not without intellect, either; and he is capable of much 
enjoyment from music.’ ” 

A spirit of song, if not the singing itself, is a constant 
delight to us. “It is like passing sweet meadows alive 
with bobolinks.”’ 

«Some men,” says Beecher, “ move through life as a 
band of music moves down the street, flinging out pleas- 
ures on every side, through the air, to every one far and 
near who can listen; others fill the air with harsh clang 
and clangor. Many men go through life carrying their 
tongue, their temper, their whole disposition so that 
wherever they go, others dread them. Some men fill the 
air with their presence and sweetness, as orchards in 
October days fill the air with the perfume of ripe fruit.” 


GOOD HUMOR. 


‘‘ Health and good humor,” said Massillon, “are to the 
human body like sunshine to vegetation.” 


36 CHEERFULNESS. 


The late Charles A. Dana fairly bubbled over with the 
enjoyment of his work, and was, up to his last illness, 
at his office every day. A Cabinet officer once said to 
him: “Well, Mr. Dana, I don’t see how you stand this 
infernal grind.” 

“Grind?” said Mr. Dana. “ You never were more 
mistaken. I have nothing but fun.” 

“ Bully ” was a favorite word with him; a slang word 
used to express uncommon pleasure, such as had been 
afforded by a trip abroad, or by arun to Cuba or Mexico, 
or by the perusal of something especially pleasing in the 
“ Sun’s ” columns. 

“One of my neighbors is a very ill-tempered man,” 
said Nathan Rothschild. ‘He tries to vex me, and has 
built a great place for swine close to my walk. So, 
when I go out, I hear first, ‘Grunt, grunt,’ then ‘Squeak, 
squeak.’ But this does me no harm. JI am always in 
good humor.” 

Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at 
the “‘' Tribune” office and inquired for the editor. He 
was shown into a little seven-by-nine sanctum, where 
Greeley sat, with his head close down to his paper, 
scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man 
began by asking if this was Mr. Greeley. “ Yes, sir; 
what do you want?” said the editor quickly, without 
once looking up from his paper. The irate visitor then 
began using his tongue, with no reference to the rules of 
propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. 
Greeley continued to write. Page after page was dashed 
off in the most impetuous style, with no change of fea- 
tures, and without paying the slightest attention to the 
visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most 
impassioned scolding ever poured out in an editor’s 


CHEERFULNESS. 37 


office, the angry man became disgusted, and abruptly 
turned to walk out of the room. Then, for the first time, 
Mr. Greeley quickly looked up, rose from his chair, and, 
slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in a 
pleasant tone of voice said: “Don’t go, friend; sit down, 
sit down, and free your mind; it will do you good, — you 
will feel better forit. Besides, it helps me to think what 
I am to write about. Don’t go.” 

“One good hearty laugh,’ says Talmage, “is like a 
bomb-shell exploding in the right place, and spleen and 
discontent like a gun that kicks over the man shooting it 
ott.” 

‘Every one,’ says Lubbock, “likes a man who can 
enjoy a laugh at his own expense, — and justly so, for it 
shows good humor and good sense. If you laugh at 
yourself, other people will not laugh at you.” 

People differ very much in their sense of humor. As 
some are deaf to certain sounds and blind to certain 
colors, so there are those who seem deaf and blind to 
certain pleasures. What makes me laugh until I almost 
go into convulsions moves them not at all. 

Is it not worth while to make an effort to see the funny 
side of our petty annoyances? How could the two boys 
but laugh, after they had contended long over the posses- 
sion of a box found by the wayside, when they agreed 
to divide its contents, and found nothing in it? 

The ability to get on with scolding, irritating people is 
a great art in doing business. To preserve serenity 
amid petty trials is a happy gift. 

A sunny temper is also conducive to health. A medi- 
cal authority of highest repute affirms that ‘“ excessive 
labor, exposure to wet and cold, deprivation of sufficient 
quantities of necessary and wholesome food, habitual bad 


38 CHEERFULNESS. 


lodging, sloth, and intemperance are all deadly enemies to 
human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent 
and ungoverned passions; ” that men and women have 
frequently lived to an advanced age in spite of these ; but 
that instances are very rare in which people of irascible 
tempers live to extreme old age. 

Poultney Bigelow, in “ Harper’s Magazine,” in relating 
the story of Jameson’s raid upon the Boers of South 
Africa, says that the triumphant Boers fell on their knees, 
thanking God for their victory; and that they prayed 
for their enemies, and treated their prisoners with the 
utmost kindness. Our foreign missionary books relate 
similar anecdotes, it being a characteristic feature of 
their childlike piety for new converts to take literally 
the words of our Lord, — “ Love your enemies.” 

It is not true that the devil has his tail in everything. 
A stalwart confidence in God, and faith in the happy 
outcome of life, will do more to lubricate the creaking 
machinery of our daily affairs than anything else. 


‘LE DIABLE EST MORT.” 


“ Courage, ami, le diable est mort!” “Courage, friend, 
the devil is dead!” was Denys’s constant countersign, 
which he would give to everybody. “ They don’t under- 
stand it,” he would say, “but it wakes them up. I carry 
the good news from city to city, to uplift men’s hearts.” 
Once he came across a child who had broken a pitcher. 
“ Courage, amie, le diable est mort /” said he, which was 
such cheering news that she ceased crying, and ran home 
to tell it to her grandma. 

Give me the man who, like Emerson, sees longevity in 
his cause, and who believes there is a remedy for every 
wrong, a satisfaction for every longing soul; the man 


CHEERFULNESS. 39 


who believes the best of everybody, and who sees beauty 
and grace where others see ugliness and deformity. 
Give me the man who believes in the ultimate triumph 
of truth over error, of harmony over discord, of love 
over hate, of purity over vice, of light over darkness, 
of life over death. Such men are the true nation- 
builders. 

Jay Cooke, many times a millionaire at the age of 
fifty-one, at fifty-two practically penniless, went to work 
again and built another fortune. The last of his three 
thousand creditors was paid, and the promise of the great 
financier was fulfilled. To a visitor who once asked him 
how he regained his fortune, Mr. Cooke replied, “ That is 
simple enough: by never changing the temperament I 
derived from my father and mother. From my earliest 
experience in life I have always been of a hopeful tem- 
- perament, never living in a cloud; I have always had a 
reasonable philosophy to think that men and times are 
better than harsh criticism would suppose. I believed 
that this American world of ours is full of wealth, and 
that it was only necessary to go to work and findit. That 
is the secret of my success in life. Always look on the 
sunny side.” 

“ Kverything has gone,” said a New York business man 
in despair, when he reached home. But when he came 
to himself he found that his wife and his children and 
the promises of God were left to him. Suffering, it was 
said by Aristotle, becomes beautiful when any one bears 
great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensi- 
bility, but through greatness of mind. 

When Garrison was locked up in the Boston city jail 
he said he had two delightful companions, —a good con- 
science and a cheerful mind. 


40 CHEERFULNESS. 


‘* To live as always seeing 
The invisible Source of things, 
Is the blessedest state of being, 
For the quietude it brings.” 


«Away with those fellows who go howling through 
life,” wrote Beecher, “and all the while passing for 
birds of paradise! He that cannot laugh and be gay 
should look to himself. He should fast and pray until 
his face breaks forth into hght.” 

Martin Luther has told us that he was once sorely dis- 
couraged and vexed at himself, the world, and the church, 
and at the small success he then seemed to be having; 
and he fell into a despondency which affected all his 
household. His good wife could not charm it away by 
cheerful speech or acts.. At length she hit upon this 
happy device, which proved effectual. She appeared 
before him in deep mourning. 

“Who is dead?” asked Luther. 

“Oh, do you not know, Martin? God in heaven is 
dead.” 

‘How can you talk such nonsense, Kathe ? How can 
God die? Why, He is immortal, and will live through 
all eternity.” 

“Ts that really true?” persisted she, as if she could 
hardly credit his assertion that God still lived. 

“ How.can you doubt it? So surely as there is a God 
in heaven,’ asserted the aroused theologian, “so sure is 
it that He can never die.” 

“And yet,” said she demurely, in a tone which made 
him look up at her, “though you do not doubt there is a 
God, you become hopeless and discouraged as if there 
were none. It seemed to me you acted as if God were 
dead.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 4i 


The spell was broken; Luther heartily laughed at his 
wife’s lesson, and her ingenious way of presenting it. 
“IT observed,” he remarked, “ what a wise woman my 
wife was, who mastered my sadness.” 

Jean Paul Richter’s dream of “No God” is one of 
the most somber things in all literature, — “ tempestuous 
chaos, no healing hand, no Infinite Father. I awoke. 
My soul wept for joy that it could again worship the 
Infinite Father. . . . And when I arose, from all 
nature I heard flowing sweet, peaceful tones, as from 
evening bells.” 


42, CHEERFULNESS. 


IV. TAKING YOUR FUN EVERY DAY AS YOU 
DO YOUR WORK. 


Ten things are necessary for happiness in this life, 
the first being a good digestion, and the other nine, — 
money ; so at least it is said by our modern philosophers. 
Yet the author of “A Gentle Life” speaks more truly in 
saying that the Divine creation includes thousands of 
superfluous joys which are totally unnecessary to the 
bare support. of life. 

He alone is the happy man who has learned to extract 
happiness, not from ideal conditions, but from the actual 
ones about him. ‘The man who has mastered the secret 
will not wait for ideal surroundings; he will not wait 
until next year, next decade, until he gets rich, until he 
can travel abroad, until he can afford to surround him- 
self with works of the great masters; but he will make 
the most out of life to-day, where he is. 


‘¢ Why thus longing, thus forever sighing, 
For the far-off, unattained and dim, 
While the beautiful, all round thee lying, 

Offers up its low, perpetual hymn ? 


‘¢ Happy the man, and happy he alone, 
He who can call to-day his own; 
’ He who, secure within himself, can say: 
‘ To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day !’” 


Paradise is here or nowhere: you must take your joy 
with you or you will never find it. 
It is after business hours, not in them, that men break 


CHEERFULNESS. 43 


down. Men must, like Philip Armour, turn the key on 
business when they. leave it, and at once unlock the 
doors of some wholesome recreation. Dr. Lyman Beecher 
used to divert himself with a violin. He hada regular 
system of what he called “unwinding,” thus relieving the 
great strain put upon him. 

“A man,” says Dr. Johnson, “should spend part of 
his time with the laughers.” 

Humor was Lincoln’s life-preserver, as it has been of 
thousands of others. “If it were not for this,” he used 
to say, “I should die.” His jests and quaint stories 
lighted the gloom of dark hours of national peril. 

“ Next to virtue,” said Agnes Strickland, “the fun in 
this world is what we can least spare.” 

“When the harness is off,” said Judge Haliburton, 

‘a, critter likes to kick up his heels.” 
'  €T have fun from morning till night,” said the editor 
Charles A. Dana to a friend who was growing prema- 
turely old. “Do you read novels, and play billiards, and 
walk a great deal ? ” 

Gladstone early formed a habit of looking on the 
bright side of things, and never lost a moment’s sleep by 
worrying about public business. 

’ There are many out-of-door sports, and the very pres- 
ence of nature is to many a great joy. How true it is that, 
if we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles with 
us, —the air seems more balmy, the sky more clear, the 
earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, 
the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly, 
and the sun, moon, and stars all appear more beautiful. 
“Tt is a grand thing to live, — to open the eyes in the 
morning and look out upon the world, to drink in the 
pure air and enjoy the sweet sunshine, to feel the pulse 


44 CHEERFULNESS. 


bound, and the being thrill with the consciousness of 
strength and power in every nerve; it is a good thing 
simply to be alive, and it is a good world we live in, in 
spite of the abuse we are fond of giving it.” 


‘¢T love to hear the bee sing amid the blossoms sunny; 
To me his drowsy melody is sweeter than his honey: 
For, while the shades are shifting 
Along the path to noon, 
My happy brain goes drifting 

To dreamland on his tune. 


‘¢ Tlove to hear the wind blow amid the blushing petals, 
And when a fragile flower falls, to watch it as it settles; 
And view each leaflet falling 
Upon the emerald turf, 
With idle mind recalling 
The bubbles on the surf. 


‘¢ T love to lie upon the grass, and let my glances wander 
Earthward and skyward there; while peacefully I ponder 
How much of purest pleasure 
Earth holds for his delight 
Who takes life’s cup to measure 
Naught but its blessings bright.” 


Upon every side of us are to be found what one has 
happily called — ¥ 


UNWORKED JOY MINES. 


And he who goes “ prospecting” to see what he can 
daily discover is a wise man, training his eye to see 
beauty in everything and everywhere. 

“ One ought, every day,” says Goethe, “at least to hear 
a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if 
it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” And 
if this be good for one’s self, why not try the song, the 


CHEERFULNESS. 45 


poem, the picture, and the good words, on some one 
else ? 

Shall music and poetry die out of you while you are 
struggling for that which can never enrich the character, 
nor add to the soul’s worth? Shall a disciplined imagi- 
nation fill the mind with beautiful pictures? He who 
has intellectual resources to fall back upon will not lack 
for daily recreation most wholesome. 

It was a remark of Archbishop Whately that we 
ought not only to cultivate the cornfields of the mind, 
but the pleasure-grounds also. A well-balanced life is 
a cheerful life; a happy union of fine qualities and un- 
ruffled temper, a clear judgment, and well-proportioned 
faculties. In a corner of his desk, Lincoln kept a copy 
of the latest humorous work; and it was frequently his 
habit, when fatigued, annoyed, or depressed, to take 
this up, and read a chapter with great relief. Clean, 
sensible wit, or sheer nonsense,— anything to provoke 
mirth and make a man jollier, — this, too, is a gift from 
Heaven. | 

In the world of books, what is grand and inspiring 
may easily become a part of every man’s life. A fond- 
ness for good literature, for good fiction, for travel, for 
history, and for biography, — what is better than this ? 


THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD. 


This title best fits Victoria, the true queen of the 
world, but it fits her best because she is the best type of 
a noble wife, the queen of her husband’s heart, and of a 
queen mother whose children rise up and call her blessed. 

‘“T noticed,” said Franklin, “a mechanic, among a 
number of others, at work on a house a little way from 
my office, who always appeared to be in a merry humor; 


46 CHEERFULNESS. 


he had a kind word and smile for every one he met. 
Let the day be ever so cold, gloomy, or sunless, a happy 
smile danced on his cheerful countenance. Meeting him 
one morning, I asked him to tell me the secret of his 
constant flow of spirits. 

“<Tt is no secret, doctor, he replied. ‘I have one 
of the best of wives; and, when I go to work, she 
always has a kind word of encouragement for me; 
and, when I go home, she meets me with a smile and 
a kiss; and then tea is sure to be ready, and she has 
done so many little things through the day to please me 
that I cannot find it in my heart to speak an unkind 
word to anybody.’ ” 

Some of the happiest homes I have ever been in, 
ideal homes, where intelligence, peace, and harmony 
dwell, have been homes of poor people. No rich egar- 
pets covered the floors; there were no costly paintings 
on the walls, no piano, no hbrary, no works of art. 
But there were contented minds, devoted and unselfish 
lives, each contributing as much as possible to the hap- 
piness of all, and endeavoring to compensate by intelli- 
gence and kindness for the poverty of their surroundings. 
‘‘One cheerful, bright, and contented spirit in a house- 
hold will uplift the tone of all the rest. The keynote of 
the home is in the hand of the resolutely cheerful mem- 
ber of the family, and he or she will set the pitch for 
the rest.” 

“ Young men,” it is said, “are apt to be overbearing, 
imperious, brusque in their manner; they need that 
suavity of manner, and urbanity of demeanor, graceful- 
ness of expression and delicacy of manner, which can 
only be gained by association with the female character, 
which possesses the delicate instinct, ready judgment, 


CHEERFULNESS. : 47 


acute perceptions, wonderful intuition. The blending of 
the male and female characteristics produces the grand- 
est character in each.” 

The woman who has what Helen Hunt so aptly called 
“a genius for affection,” — she, indeed, is queen of the 
home. “I have often had occasion,” said Washington | 
Irving, “to remark the fortitude with which woman 
sustains the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. 
Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, 
and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the 
energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity 
and elevation to their character that at times it ap- 
proaches sublimity.” 

If a wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so 
that it shall be the cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place 
her husband can find refuge in, —a retreat from the 
toils and troubles of the outer world,—then God help 
the poor man, for he is virtually homeless. “ Home- 
keeping hearts,” said Longfellow, “are happiest.” 
What is a good wife, a good mother? Is she nota gift 
out of heayen, sacred and delicate, with affections so 
great that no measuring line short of that of the infinite 
God can tell their bound; fashioned to refine and soothe 
and lift and irradiate home and society and the world; 
of such value that no one can appreciate it, unless his 
mother lived long enough to let him understand it, or 
unless, in some great crisis of life, when all else failed 
him, he had a wife to reénforce him with a faith in God 
that nothing could disturb ? 

Nothing can be more delightful than an Eatbadots of 
Joseph H. Choate, of New York, our Minister at the 
Court of St. James. Upon being asked, at a dinner- 
party, who he would prefer to be if he could not be him- 


48 CHEERFULNESS. 


self, he hesitated a moment, apparently running over 
in his mind the great ones on earth, when his eyes rested 
on Mrs. Choate at the other end of the table, who was 
watching him with great interest in her face, and sud- 
denly replied, “If I could not be myself, I should like 
to be Mrs. Choate’s second husband.” 

“Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the 
soul and health to the bones.” It is the little disputes, 
little fault-findings, little insinuations, little reflections, 
sharp criticisms, fretfulness and impatience, little un- 
kindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad temper, that 
create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family. 
How much it would add to the glory of the homes of 
the world if that might be said of every one which Rog- 
ers said of Lord Holland’s sunshiny face: “ He always 
comes to breakfast hke a man upon whom some sudden 
good fortune has fallen ”’! | 

The value of pleasant words every day, as you go 
along, is well depicted by Aunt Jerusha in what she 
said to our genial friend of “ Zion’s Herald” : — 

“If folks could have their funerals when they are 
alive and well and struggling along, what a help it 
would be”! she sighed, upon returning from a funeral, 
wondering how poor Mrs. Brown would have felt if she 
could have heard what the minister said. Poor soul, 
she never dreamed they set so much by her! 

‘‘ Mis’ Brown got discouraged. Ye see, Deacon Brown, 
he’d got a way of blaming everything on to her. I 
don’t suppose the deacon meant it, —’t was just his way, 
—but it’s awful wearing. When things wore out or 
broke, he acted just as if Mis’ Brown did it herself on 
purpose; and they all caught it, like the measles or the 
whooping-cough, 


CHEERFULNESS. 49 


“« And the minister a-telling how the deacon brought 
his young wife here when ’t wa’ n’t nothing but a wilder. 
ness, and how patiently she bore hardship, and what a 
good wife she’d been! Nowthe minister would n’t have 
known anything about that if the deacon had n’t told 
him. Dear! Dear! If he’d only told Mis’ Brown 
herself what he thought, I do believe he might have 
saved the funeral. 

«¢ And when the minister said how the children would 
miss their mother, seemed as though they could n’t 
stand it, poor things ! 

“ Well, I guess it is true enough, —Mis’ Brown was 
always doing for some of them. Whenthey was singing 
about sweet rest in heaven, I could n’t help thinking that ° 
that was something Mis’ Brown would have to get used 
to, for she never had none of it here. 

‘‘She’d have been awful pleased with the flowers. 
They was pretty, and no mistake. Ye see, the deacon 
wa’ n’t never willing for her to have a flower-bed. He 
said *t was enough prettier sight to see good cabbages 
a-growing; but Mis’ Brown always kind of hankered 
after sweet-smelling things, like roses and such. 

“ What did you say, Levi? ’Most time for supper ? 
Well, land’s sake, so it is! I must have got to meditat- 
ing. I’ve been athinking, Levi, you needn’t tell the 
minister anything about me. If the pancakes and 
pumpkin pies are good, you just say so as we go along. 
It ain’t best to keep everything laid up for funerals.” 

It is the grand secret of a happy home to express the 
affection you really have. 

“ He is the happiest,” it was said by Goethe, “be he 
king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” There 
are indeed many serious, too serious-minded fathers and 


50 CHEERFULNESS. 


mothers who do not wish to advertise their children to 
all the neighbors as “the laughing family.” If this be 
so, yet, at the very least, these solemn parents may 
read the Bible. Where it is said, “ provoke not your 
children to wrath,” it means literally, “do not irritate 
your children ;” “do not rub them up the wrong way.” 

Children ought never to get the impression that they 
live in a hopeless, cheerless, cold world; but the house- 
hold cheerfulness should transform their lives like sun- 
light, making their hearts glad with little things, rejoicing 
upon small occasion. 

“ How beautiful would our home-life be if every little 
child at the bed-time hour could look into the faces of the 
older ones and say: ‘ We’ve had such sweet times to- 
day.’ 33 

“To love, and to be loved,’ says Sydney Smith, “is 
the greatest happiness of existence.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 51 


V. FINDING WHAT YOU DO NOT SEEK. 


Dining one day with Baron James Rothschild, Eugene 
Delacroix, the famous French artist, confessed that, dur- 
ing some time past, he had vainly sought for a head to 
serve as a model for that of a beggar in a picture which 
he was painting; and that, as he gazed at his host’s fea- 
tures, the idea suddenly occurred to him that the very 
head he desired was before him. Rothschild, being a great 
lover of art, readily consented to sit as the beggar. The 
next day, at the studio, Delacroix placed a tunic around | 
the baron’s shoulders, put a stout staff in his hand, and 
made him pose as if he were resting on the steps of an 
ancient Roman temple. In this attitude he was found 
by one of the artist’s favorite pupils, in a brief absence 
of the master from the room. The youth naturally con- 
cluded that the beggar had just been brought in, and 
with a sympathetic look quietly slipped a piece of money 
into his hand. Rothschild thanked him simply, pocketed 
the money, and the student passed out. Rothschild then 
inquired of the master, and found that the young man 
had talent, but very slender means. Soon after, the 
youth received a letter stating that charity bears interest, 
and that the accumulated interest on the amount he had 
given to one he supposed to be a beggar was represented 
by the sum of ten thousand frances, which was awaiting 
his claim at the Rothschild office. 

This illustrates well the art of cheerful amusement 
even if one has great business cares, — the entertainment 
of the artist, the personation of a beggar, and an act of 
beneficence toward a worthy student. 


52. CHEERFULNESS. 


It illustrates, too, what was said by Wilhelm von Hum- 
boldt, that ‘it is worthy of special remark that when 
we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, 
but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing perform- 
ance of duty, then happiness comes of itself.” We 
carry each day nobly, doing the duty or enjoying the 
privilege of the moment, without thinking whether or 
not it will make us happy. ‘This is quite in accord with 
the saying of George Herbert, “The consciousness of 
duty performed gives us music at midnight.” 

Are not buoyant spirits like water sparkling when it 
runs? “Ihave found my greatest happiness in labor,” 
said Gladstone. “I early formed a habit of industry, 
and it has been its own reward. The young are apt 
to think that rest means a cessation from all effort, but I 
have found the most perfect rest in changing effort. If 
brain-weary over books and study, go out into the blessed 
sunlight and the pure air, and give heartfelt exercise to 
the body. The brain will soon become calm and rested. 
The efforts of Nature are ceaseless. Even in our sleep 
the heart throbs on. I try to live close to Nature, and to 
imitate her in my labors. The compensation is sound 
sleep, a wholesome digestion, and powers that are kept 
at their best; and this, I take it, is the chief reward of 
industry.” 

“Owing to ingrained habits,’ said Horace Mann, 
‘work has always been to me what water is toafish. I 
have wondered a thousand times to hear people say, ‘1 
don’t like this business,’ or ‘I wish I could exchange it 
for that ;’ for with me, when I have had anything to do, 
I do not remember ever to have demurred, but have 
always set about it like afatalist, and it was as sure to be 
done as the sun was to set.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 56 


“ One’s personal enjoyment is a very small thing, but 
one’s personal usefulness is a very important thing.” 
Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some 
object other than their own happiness. ‘The most deli- 
cate, the most sensible of all pleasures,” says La Bruyeére, 
“consists in promoting the pleasures of others.” And 
Hawthorne has said that the inward pleasure of impart- 
ing pleasure is the choicest of all. 

“Oh, it is great,” said Carlyle, “and there is no other 
greatness, — to make some nook of God’s creation more 
fruitful, better, more worthy of God, — to make some 
human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier, more blessed, 
less accursed!” The gladness of service, of having some 
honorable share in the world’s work, what is better than 
this ? 

“The Lord must love the common people,” said 
Lincoln, “for he made so many of them, and so few of 
the other kind.” To extend to all the-cup of joy is 
indeed angelic business, and there is nothing that makes 
one more beautiful than to be engaged in it. 

“The high desire that others may be blest savors of 
heaven.” 

The memory of those who spend their days in hang- 
ing sweet pictures of faith and trust in the galleries of 
sunless lives shall never perish from the earth. 


DOING GOOD BY STEALTH, AND HAVING IT FOUND OUT 
BY ACCIDENT. 


“This,” said Charles Lamb, “is the greatest pleasure 
I know.” ‘Money never yet made a man happy,” said 
Franklin; “ and there is nothing in its nature to produce 
happiness.” To do good with it, makes life a delight to 
the giver. How happy, then, was the life of Jean Ingelow, 


54 CHEERFULNESS. 


since what she received from the sale of a hundred thou- 
sand copies of her poems, and fifty thousand of her prose 
works, she spent largely in charity ;one unique charity 
being a “copyright” dinner three times a week to twelve 
poor persons just discharged from the neighboring hos- 
pitals! Nor was any one made happier by it than the 
poet. 

John Ruskin inherited a million dollars. “ With this 
money he set about doing good,” says a writer in the 
“ Arena.” ‘Poor young men and women who were 
struggling to get an education were helped, homes for 
working men and women were established, and model 
apartment houses were erected. He also promoted a 
work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. ‘This 
land was used for the aid of unfortunate men who wished 
to rise again from the state in which they had fallen 
through cruel social conditions and their own weaknesses. 
It is said that this work suggested to General Booth his 
colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal 
in aiding poor artists, and has done much to encourage 
artistic taste among the young. On one occasion he pur 
chased ten fine water-color paintings by Holman Hunt 
for $3,750, to be hung in the public schools of London. 
By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheri- 
tance, besides all the income from his books. But the 
calls of the poor, and his plans looking toward educating 
and ennobling the lives of working men, giving more 
sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose 
of all the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient 
to yield him $1,500 a year on which to live.” 

Our own Peter Cooper, in his last days, was one of the 
happiest men in America; his beneficence shone in his 
countenance. 


CHEERFULNESS. 55 


-- Let the man who has the blues take a map and census 
table of the world, and estimate how many millions there 
are who would gladly exchange lots with him, and let 
him begin upon some practicable plan to do all the good 
he can to as many as he can, and he will forget to be 
despondent; and he need not stop short at praying for 
them without first giving every dollar he can, without 
troubling the Lord about that. Let him scatter his 
flowers as he goes along, since he will never go over the 
same road again. 

No man in England had a better time than did Du 
Maurier on that cold day when he took the hat of an 
old soldier on Hampstead road, and sent him away to 
the soup kitchen in Euston to get warm. The artist 
chalked on a blackboard such portraits as he commonly 
made for “ Punch,” and soon gathered a great quantity 
of small coins for the grateful soldier; who, however, 
at once rubbed out Du Maurier’s pictures and put on 
“the faithful dog,” and a battle scene, as more artistic. 

‘‘Chinese Gordon,” after serving faithfully and val- 
iantly in the great Chinese rebellion, and receiving 
the highest honors of the Chinese Empire, returned to 
England, caring little for the praise thus heaped on 
him. He took some position at Gravesend, just below 
London, where he filled his house with boys from the 
streets, whom he taught and made men of, and then 
secured them places on ships, — following them all over 
the world with letters of advice and encouragement. 


HIS HEAD IN A HOLE. 


“T was appointed to lecture in a town in Great 
Britain six miles from the railway,” said John B. 
Gough, “and a man drove me in a fly from the station 


56 CHEERFULNESS. 


to the town. I noticed that he sat leaning forward in 
an awkward manner, with his face close to the glass of 
the window. Soon he folded a handkerchief and tied it 
round his neck. I asked him if he was cold. “No, 
sir.” Then he placed the handkerchief round his face. 
T asked him if he had the toothache. “No, sir,” was 
the reply. Still he sat leaning forward. At last I said, 
« Will you please tell me why you sit leaning forward 
that way with a handkerchief round your neck if you are 
not cold and have no toothache?” He said very quietly, 
“The window of the carriage is broke, and the wind is 
cold, and I am trying to keep it from you.” I said, in 
surprise, “ You are not putting your face to that broken 
pane to keep the wind from me, are you?” ‘Yes, sir, I 
am.” ‘Why do you do that?” “God bless you, sir! I 
owe everything I have in the world to you.” “But I 
never saw you before.” “No, sir; but I have seen you. 
JI was a ballad-singer once. I used to go round with a 
half-starved baby in my arms for charity, and a draggled 
wife at my heels half the time, with her eyes blackened ; 
and I went to hear you in Edinburgh, and you told me I 
was a man; and when I went out of that house I said, 
‘By the help of God, I’ll be a man;’ and now I’vea 
happy wife and a comfortable home. God bless you, 
sir! I would stick my head in any hole under the 
heavens if it would do you any good.” 
‘¢ Let’s find the sunny side of men, 
Or be believers in it; 
A light there is in every soul 
That takes the pains to win it. 
Oh! there’s a slumbering good in all, 
And we perchance may wake it; 


Our hands contain the magic wand: 
This life is what we make it.” 


CHEERFULNESS. ee 


He indeed is getting the most out of life who does 
most to elevate mankind. How happy were those Little 
Sisters of the Poor at Tours, who took scissors to divide 
their last remnant of bedclothing with an old woman who 
came-to them at night, craving hospitality! And how 
happy was that. American school-teacher who gave up the 
best room in the house, which she had engaged long be- 
fore the season opened, at a mountain sanitarium, during 
the late war, taking instead of it the poorest room in the 
house, that she might give good quarters to a soldier just 
out of his camp hospital ! 

“Teach self-denial,’ said Walter Scott, “and make 
its practice pleasurable, and you create for the world a 
destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of 
the wildest dreamer.” 

Yet how many there are, ready to make some great 
sacrifice, who neglect those little acts of kindness which 
make so many lives brighter and happier. - 

“Tsay, Jim, it’s the first time I ever had anybody ask 
my parding, and it kind o’ took me off my feet.” A 
young lady had knocked him down in hastily turning a 
corner. She stopped and said to the ragged crossing- 
boy : “I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very 
sorry I ran against you.” He took off the piece of a 
cap he had on his skull, made a low bow, and said 
with a broad smile: “ You have my parding, Miss, and 
welcome; and the next time you run agin me, you can 
knock me clean down and I won’t say a word.” 

One of the greatest mistakes of life is to save our 
smiles and pleasant words and sympathy for those of 
“our set,” or for those not now with us, and for other 
times than the present. 

«“ Jf a word or two will render a man happy,” said a 


58 CHEERFULNESS. 


Frenchman, ‘he must be a wretch indeed who will not 
give it. It is like lighting another man’s candle with 
your own, which loses none of its brilliancy by what the 
other gains.” 

Sydney Smith recommends us to make at least one 
person happy every day: “ Take ten years, and you will 
make thirty-six hundred and fifty persons happy; or 
brighten a small town by your contribution to the fund 
of general joy.” One who is cheerful is preéminently 
useful. 

Dr. Raffles once said: “I have made it a rule never 
to be with a person ten minutes without trying to make 
him happier.” It was a remark of Dr. Dwight, that 
‘one who makes a little child happier for half an hour 
is a fellow-worker with God.” 

A little boy said to his mother: “I could n’t make 
little sister happy, nohow I could fix it. But I made 
myself happy trying to make her happy.” “Imake Jim 
happy, and he laughs,” said another boy, speaking of his 
invalid brother; “and that makes me happy, and I 
laugh.” 

There was once a king who loved his little boy very 
much, and took a great deal of pains to please him, So 
he gave him a pony to ride, beautiful rooms to live in, 
pictures, books, toys without number, teachers, com- 
panions, and everything that money could buy or in- 
genuity devise; but for all this, the young prince was 
unhappy. He wore a frown wherever he went, and 
was always wishing for something he did not have. At 
length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl 
on the boy’s face, and said to the king: “I can make 
your son happy, and turn his frowns into smiles, but 
you must pay me a great price for telling him this 


CHEERFULNESS. 59 


secret.” “AJl right,” said the king; “whatever you 
ask I will give.” The magician took the boy into a 
private room. He wrote something with a white sub- 
stance on a piece of paper. He gave the boy a candle, 
and told him to light it and hold it under the paper, and 
then see what he could read. Then the magician went 
away. The boy did as he had been told, and the white 
letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed these 
words: “Do a kindness to some one every day.” The 
prince followed the advice, and became the happiest boy 
in the realm. 

«« Happiness,” says one writer, “‘is a mosaic, composed 
of many smaller stones.” It is the little acts of kind- 
ness, the little courtesies, the disposition to be accommo- 
dating, to be helpful, to be sympathetic, to be unselfish, 
to be careful not to wound the feelings, not to expose the 
sore spots, to be charitable of the weaknesses of others, 
to be considerate, — these are the little things which, 
added up at night, are found to be the secret of a happy 
day. Howmuch greater are all these than one great act 
of noteworthy goodness once a year! Our lives are 
made up of trifles; emergencies rarely occur. “ Little 
things, unimportant events, experiences so small as to 
scarcely leave a trace behind, make up the sum-total of 
life.’ And the one great thing in life is to do a little 
good to every one we meet. Ready sympathy, a quick 
eye, and a little tact, are all that are needed. 

This point is happily illustrated by this report of an 
incident upon a train from Providence to Boston. A 
lady was caring for her father, whose mental faculties 
were weakened by age. He imagined that some impera- 
tive duty called on him to leave the swift-moving train, 
and his daughter could not quiet him. Just then she 


60 CHEERFULNESS. 


noticed a large man watching them over the top of his 
paper. As soon as he caught her eye, he rose and 
crossed quickly to her. 

“‘T beg your pardon, you are in trouble. May I help 
you?” 

She explained the situation to him. 

“ What is your father’s name ?” he asked. 

She told him; and then with an encouraging smile, 
she spoke to her venerable father who was sitting imme- 
diately in front of her. The next moment the large man 
turned over the seat, and leaning toward the troubled old 
man, he addressed him by name, shook hands with him 
cordially, and engaged him in a conversation so interest- 
ing and so cleverly arranged to keep his mind occupied 
that the old gentleman forgot his need to leave the train, 
and did not think of it again until they were in Boston. 
There the stranger put the lady and her charge into a 
carriage, received her assurance that she felt perfectly 
safe, and was about to close the carriage door, when she 
remembered that she had felt so safe in the keeping of 
this noble-looking man that she had not even asked his 
name. Hastily putting her hand against the door, she 
said: “Pardon me, but you have rendered me such ser- 
vice, may I not know whom I am thanking?” The big 
man smiled as he turned away, and answered : — 


‘¢ PHILLIPS BROOKS.” 


“ What a gift it is,” said Beecher, who was the great 
preacher of cheerfulness, “to make all men better and 
happier without knowing it! We do not suppose that 
flowers know how sweet they are. These roses and car- 
nations have made me happy fora day. Yet they stand 
huddled together in my pitcher, without seeming to know 


CHEERFULNESS. 61 


my thoughts of them, or the gracious work they are 
doing. And how much more is it, to have a disposition 
that carries with it involuntarily sweetness, calmness, 
courage, hope, and happiness. Yet this is the portion 
of good nature in a large-minded, strong-natured man. 
When it has made him happy, it has scarcely begun its 
office. ‘God sends a natural heart-singer — aman whose 
nature is large and luminous, and who, by his very 
carriage and spontaneous actions, calms, cheers, and 
helps his fellows. God bless him, for he blesses every- 
body!” This is just what Mr. Beecher would have said 
about Phillips Brooks. 

And what better can be said than to compare the 
heart’s good cheer to a floral offering? Are not flowers 
appropriate gifts to persons of all ages, in any conceivable 
circumstances in which they are placed? Sothe heart’s 
good cheer and deeds of kindness are always acceptable to 
children and youth, to busy men and women, to the aged, 
and to a world of wvalids. 

“Thus live and die, O man immortal, ” says Dr. Chal- 
mers. “ Live for something. Do good, and leave behind 
you a monument of virtue, which the storms of time can 
never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and 
mercy, on the hearts of those who come in contact with 
you, and you will never be forgotten. Good deeds will 
shine as brightly on earth as the stars of heaven.” 

What is needed to round out human happiness is a 
well-balanced life. Not ease, not pleasure, not happi- 
ness, buta man, Nature isafter. “There is,” says Robert 
Waters, “no success without honor; no happiness with- 
out a clear conscience; no use in living at all if only for 
one’s self. It is not at all necessary for you to make a 
fortune, but it is necessary, absolutely necessary, that 


62 CHEERFULNESS. 


you should become a fair-dealing, honorable, useful man, 
radiating goodness and cheerfulness wherever you go, and 
making your life a blessing.” 

«“ When a man does not find repose in himself,” says 
a French proverb, “it is vain for him to seek it else- 
where.” Happy is he who has no sense of discord with 
the harmony of the universe, who is open to the voices 
of nature and of the spiritual realm, and who sees the 
light that never was on sea or land. Such a life can but 
give expression to its inward harmony. Every pure and 
healthy thought, every noble aspiration for the good 
and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher 
and better life, every lofty purpose-and unselfish endeavor, 
makes the human spirit stronger, more harmonious, and 
more beautiful. It is this alone that gives a self-centered 
confidence in one’s heaven-aided powers, and a high- 
minded cheerfulness, like that of a celestial spirit. It is 
this which an old writer has called the paradise of a good 
conscience. 


‘¢T count this thing to be grandly true, 
That a noble deed is a step toward God; 
Lifting the seul from the common clod 

To a purer air and a broader view. 


‘¢ We rise by the things that are under our feet; 
By what we have mastered of good or gain; 
By the pride deposed and the passion slain, 

And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.” 


“ My body must walk the earth,” said an ancient poet, 
“but I can put wings on my soul, and plumes to my 
hardest thought.” The splendors and symphonies and 
the ecstacies of a higher world are with us now in the 
rudimentary organs of eye and ear and heart. Much we 


CHEERFULNESS. d 63 


have to do, much we have to love, much we have to hope 
for; and our “ joy is the grace we say to God.” ‘“ When 
I think upon God,” said Haydn to Carpani, “ my heart 
is so full of joy that the notes leap from my pen.” 

Says Gibbons : — 


‘* Our lives are songs: 
God writes the words, 
And we set them to music at leisure; 
And the song is sad, or the song is glad, 
As we choose to fashion the measure. 


‘‘ We must write the song 
Whatever the words, 
Whatever its rhyme or meter; 
And if it is sad, we must make it glad, 
And if sweet, we must make it sweeter.’’ 


64 CHEERFULNESS. 


VI. “LOOKING PLEASANT ”— SOMETHING TO 
BE WORKED FROM THE INSIDE. 


Acting on a sudden impulse, an elderly woman, the 
widow of a soldier who had been killed in the Civil War, 
went into a photographer’s to have her picture taken. 
She was seated before the camera wearing the same stern, 
hard, forbidding look that had made her an object of 
fear to the children living in the neighborhood, when the 
photographer, thrusting his head out from the black 
cloth, said suddenly, “Brighten the eyes a little.” 

She tried, but the dull and heavy look still lingered. 

“Look a httle pleasanter,” said the photographer, in 
an unimpassioned but confident and commanding voice. 

“‘See here,” the woman retorted sharply, “if you think 
that an old woman who is dull can look bright, that one 
who feels cross can become pleasant every time she is told 
to, you don’t know anything about human nature. It 
takes something from the outside to brighten the eye and 
illuminate the face.” 

“Oh, no, it doesn’t! It’s something to be worked 
from the inside. Try it again,” said the photographer 
good-naturedly. 

Something in his manner inspired faith, and she tried 
again, this time with better success. 

“That’s good! That’s fine! You look twenty years 
younger,” exclaimed the artist, as he caught the transient 
glow that illuminated the faded face. . 

She went home with a queer feeling in her heart. It 
was the first compliment she had received since her hus- 


CHEERFULNESS. 66 


band had passed away, and it left a pleasant memory 
behind. When she reached her little cottage, she looked 
long in the glass and said, “There may be something in 
it. But I’ll wait and see the picture.”’ 

When the picture came, it was like a resurrection. 
The face seemed alive with the lost fires of youth. She 
gazed long and earnestly, then said in a clear, firm voice, 
“Tf I could do it once, I can do it again.” 

Approaching the little mirror above her bureau, she 
said, “ Brighten up, Catherine,” and the old light flashed 
up once-more. 

“ Look a little pleasanter!” she commanded; and a 
calm and radiant smile diffused itself over the face. 

Her neighbors, as the writer of this story has said, soon 
remarked the change that had come over her face: “ Why, 
Mrs. A., you are getting young. How do you manage it ?” 

“Tt is almost all done from the inside. You just 
brighten up inside and feel pleasant.” 


‘< Fate served me meanly, but I looked at her and laughed, 
That none might know how bitter was the cup I quaffed. 
Along came Joy and paused beside me where I sat, 

Saying, ‘I came to see what you were laughing at.’” 


Every emotion tends to sculpture the body into beauty 
or into ugliness. Worrying, fretting, unbridled passions, 
petulance, discontent, every dishonest act, every false- 
hood, every feeling of envy, jealousy, fear, — each has 
its effect on the system, and acts deleteriously like a 
poison or a deformer of the body. Professor James of 
Harvard, an expert in the mental sciences, says, “ Every 
small stroke of virtue or vice leaves its ever so little scar. 
Nothing we ever do is, in strict literalness, wiped out.’ 
The way to be beautiful without is to be beautiful within. 


6 ‘CHEERFULNESS. 


WORTH FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. 


It is related that Dwight L. Moody once offered to 
his Northfield pupils a prize of five hundred dollars for 
the best thought. This took the prize: “Men grumble 
because God put thorns with roses; would n’t it be better 
to thank God that he put roses with thorns ?” 

We win half the battle when we make up our minds to 
take the world as we find it, including the thorns. “It 
is,” says Fontenelle, “a great obstacle to happiness to 
expect too much.” This is what happens in real life. 
Watch Edison. He makes the most expensive experi- 
ments throughout a long period of time, and he expects 
to make them, and he never worries because he does not 
succeed the first time. 

‘“T cannot but think,” says Sir John Lubbock, “ that 
the world would be better and brighter if our teachers 
would dwell on the duty of happiness as well as on the 
happiness of duty.” 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in advanced years, acknowl- 
edged his debt of gratitude to the nurse of his childhood, 
who studiously taught him to ignore unpleasant incidents. 
If he stubbed his toe, or skinned his knee, or bumped his 
nose, his nurse would never permit his mind to dwell 
upon the temporary pain, but claimed his attention for 
some pretty object, or charming story, or happy reminis- 
cence. To her, he said, he was largely indebted for the 
sunshine of a long life. It is a lesson which is easily 
mastered in childhood, but seldom to be learned in mid- 
dle life, and never in old age. 

“When I was a boy,” says another author, “I was 
consoled for cutting my finger by having my attention 
called to the fact that I had’ not broken my arm; and 


CHEERFULNESS. 67 


when I got a cinder in my eye, I was expected to feel 
more comfortable because my cousin had lost his eye by . 
an accident.” 

“We should brave trouble,’ says Beecher, “as the 
New England boy braves winter. The school is a mile 
away over the hill, yet he lingers not by the fire; but, 
with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to face 
the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where 
the snow lies in drifts, and the north wind comes keen 
and biting, does he shrink and cower down by the fences, 
or run into the nearest house to warm himself? No; he 
buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and 
tosses the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect and 
fearless, with strong heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on 
to his place at school.” 

Children should be taught the habit of finding pleasure 
everywhere; and to see the bright side of everything. 
“ Serenity of mind comes easy to some, and hard to others. 
It can be taught and learned. We ought to have teachers 
who are able to educate us in this department of our 
natures quite as much as in music or art. Think of a 
school or classes for training men and women to carry 
themselves serenely amid all the trials that beset them ! ” 


‘¢ Joy is the mainspring in the whole 
Of endless Nature’s calm rotation. 
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll 
In the great timepiece of Creation.” 
ScHILLER. 


THE *“* DON’T WORRY’ SOCIETY 


was organized not long ago in New York; it is, however, 
just as well suited to other latitudes and longitudes. It 
is intended for people who “cannot help worrying.” 


68 CHEERFULNESS. 


If really you can’t help it, you are in an abnormal con: 
dition, you have lost self-control, — it is a mild type of 
mental derangement. You must attack your bad habit 
of worrying as you would a disease. It is definitely 
something to be overcome, an infirmity that you are to 
get rid of. : 

‘Be good and you will be happy,” is a very old piece 
of advice. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore now proposes to 
reverse it, —“ Be happy and you will be good.” If un- 
happiness is a bad habit, you are to turn about by sheer 
force of will and practice cheerfulness. “ Happiness is a 
thing to be practiced like a violin.” 

Not work, but worry, fretfulness, friction, — these are 
our foes in America. You should not go here and there, 
making prominent either your bad manners or a gloomy 
face. Who has aright to rob other people of their hap- 
piness? “Do not,” says Emerson, “ hang a dismal pict- 
ure on your wall; and do not deal with sables and glooms 
in your conversation.” 

If you are not at the moment cheerful, — look, speak, 
act, as if you were. “You know I had no money, I 
had nothing to give but myself,’ said a woman who 
had great sorrows to bear, but who bore them cheer- 
fully. “I formed a resolution never to sadden any one 
else with my troubles. I have laughed and told 
jokes when I could have wept. I have always smiled 
in the face of every misfortune. I have tried never 
to let any one go from my presence without a happy 
word or a bright thought to carry away. And 
happiness makes happiness. JI myself am happier 
than I should have been had I sat down and bemoaned 
my fate.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 69 . 


‘‘*T is easy enough to be pleasant, 

When life flows along like a song; 

But the man worth while is the one who will smile 
When everything goes dead wrong; 

For the test of the heart is trouble, 

And it always comes with the years; 

And the smile that is worth the praise of the earth 
Is the smile that comes through tears.” 


A PLEASURE BOOK. 


«¢ She is an aged woman, but her face is serene and 
peaceful, though trouble has not passed her by. She 
seems utterly above the little worries and vexations which 
torment the average woman and leave lines of care. The 
Fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her 
happiness; and the beautiful old face shone with joy. 

«“¢ My dear,’ she said, ‘I keep a Pleasure Book.’ 

c¢ A what?’ 

“<A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there 
is no day so dark and gloomy that it does not contain 
some ray of light, and I have made it one business of 
my life to write down the little things which mean so 
much toa woman. I have a book marked for every day 
of every year since I left school. It is but a little 
thing : the new gown, the chat with a friend, the thought- 
fulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in the 
field, a letter, a concert, or a drive; but it all goes into 
my Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I 
read a few pages to see what a happy, blessed woman 
Iam. You may see my treasures if you will.’ 

“Slowly the peevish, discontented woman turned over 
the book her friend brought her, reading a little here and 
there. One day’s entries ran thus: ‘Had a pleasant 
letter from mother. Saw a beautiful lly in a window. 


70 CHEERFULNESS. 


Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw such a bright, 
happy girl on the street. Husband brought some roses 
in the evening.’ 

“‘ Bits of verse and lines from her daily reading have 
gone into the Pleasure Book of this world-wise woman, 
until its pages are a storehouse of truth and beauty. 

“<« Have you found a pleasure for every day?’ the 
Fretful Woman asked. 

““<¢ For every day,’ the low voice answered; ‘I had to 
make my theory come true, you know.’ ” 

The Fretful Woman ought to have stopped there, but 
did not; and she found that page where it was written 
—‘‘ He died with his hand in mine, and my name upon 
his lips.”. Below were the lines from Lowell : — 


‘¢ Lone watcher on the mountain height: 
It is right precious to behold 

The first long surf of climbing light 
Flood all the thirsty eat with gold; 


** Yet God deems not thine aeried sight 
More worthy than our twilight dim, 

For meek obedience, too, is light, 
And following that is finding Him.” 


In one of the battles of the Crimea, a cannon-ball 
struck inside the fort, crashing through a beautiful 
garden; but from the ugly chasm there burst forth a 
spring of water which is still flowing. And how beau- 
tiful it is, if our strange earthly sorrows become a 
blessing to others, through our determination to live and 
to do for those who need our help. Life is not given for 
mourning, but for unselfish service. . 


1 For this Pleasure-Book illustration I am indebted to ‘“‘ The Woman’s Home 
Companion.” 


CHEERFULNESS. 71 


‘“ Cheerfulness,” says Ruskin, “is as natural to the 
heart of aman in strong health as color to his cheek ; 
and wherever there is habitual gloom there must be 
either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe 
labor, or erring habits of life.” It is an erring habit of 
life if we are not first of all cheerful. We are thrown 
into a morbid habit through circumstances utterly beyond 
our control, yet this fact does not change our duty to- 
ward God and toward man, — our duty to be cheerful. 
We are human; but it is our high privilege to lead a 
divine life, to accept the joy which our Lord bequeathed 
to his disciples. 

Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man’s 
habits are well set, about all he can do is to sit by and 
observe which way he is going. Regret it as he may, 
how helpless is a weak man, bound by the mighty cable 
of habit; twisted from tiny threads which he thought 
were absolutely within his control. Yet a habit of 
happy thought would transform his life into harmony 
and beauty. Is not the will almost omnipotent to deter- 
mine habits before they become all-powerful ? What 
contributes more to health or happiness than a strong, 
vigorous will? A habit of directing a firm and steady 
will upon those things which tend to produce harmony 
of thought will bring happiness and contentment; the 
will, rightly drilled, — and divinely guided, — can drive 
out all discordant thoughts, and usher in the reign of 
perpetual harmony. It is impossible to overestimate 
the importance of forming a habit of cheerfulness early 
in life. The serene optimist is one whose mind has 
dwelt so long upon the sunny side of life that he has 
acquired a habit of cheerfulness. 


12 CHEERFULNESS. 


‘¢ Talk happiness. The world is sad enough 
Without your woes. No path is wholly rougha 
Look for the places that are smooth and clear, 
And speak of those who rest the weary ear 

Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain 

Of human discontent and grief and pain. 


a7 


‘¢ Talk faith. The world is better off without 
Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt. 

If you have faith in God, or man, or self, 

Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf 

Of silence all your thoughts till faith shall come, 
No one will grieve because your lips are dumb. 


‘¢ Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale 

Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. 

You cannot charm, or interest, or please, 

By harping on that minor chord, disease. 

Say you are well, or all is well with you. 

And God shall hear your words and make them true.” ! 


1 The three metrical pieces cited in this chapter are by ELLA WHEELEB 
WtLcox, who has gladdened the world by so much literary sunlight. 


CHEERFULNESS. 3 


VII. THE SUNSHINE-MAN. 


“There ’s the dearest little old gentleman,” says James 
Buckham, “ who goes into town every morning on the 
8.30 train. I don’t know his name, and yet I know him 
better than anybody else in town. He just radiates 
cheerfulness as far as you can see him. There is always 
a smile on his face, and I never heard him open his 
mouth except to say something kind, courteous, or good 
natured. Everybody bows to him, even strangers, and 
he bows to everybody, yet never with the slightest hint 
of presumption or familiarity. If the weather is fine, 
his jolly compliments make it seem finer; and if it is 
raining, the merry way in which he speaks of it is as 
good as arainbow. Everybody who goes in on the 8.30 
train knows the sunshine-man; it’s his train. You just 
hurry up a little, and I’ll show you the sunshine-man 
this morning. It’s foggy and cold, but if one look at 
him does n’t cheer you up so that si "ll want to iis: 
then I’m no judge of human nature.” 

“Good morning, sir!” said Mr. Jolliboy in going to 
the same train. 

“Why, sir, I don’t know you,” replied My Never- 
smile. 

“JT did n’t say you did, sir. Good morning, sir!” — 

“ The inborn geniality of somé people,” says Whipple, 
amounts to genius.” How in our troubled lives,” asks 
J. Freeman Clarke, “could we do without these fair, 
sunny natures, into which on their creation-day God 
allowed nothing sour, acrid, or bitter to enter, but made 


74. CHEERFULNESS. 


them a perpetual solace and comfort by their cheerful- 
ness?” There are those whose very presence, carries 
sunshine with them wherever they go; a sunshine which 
means pity for the poor, sympathy for the suffering, 
help for the unfortunate, and benignity toward all. 
Everybody loves the sunny soul. His very face is a pass- 
port anywhere. All doors fly open to him. He disarms 
prejudice and envy, for he bears good will to éveryhody. 
He is as welcome in every household as the sunshine. 

“He was quiet, cheerful, genial,” says Carlyle in his 
« Reminiscences ” concerning Edward Irving’s sunny help- 
fulness. ‘ His soul unruffled, clear as a mirror, honestly 
loving and loved, Irving’s voice was to me one of bless- 
edness and new hope.” 

And to William Wilberforce the poet Southey paid 
this tribute: “I never saw any other man who seemed 
to enjoy such perpetual serenity and sunshine of spirit.” 

‘“T resolved,” said Tom Hood, “that, like the sun, so 
long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side 
of everything.” 

When Goldsmith was in Flanders he discovered the 
happiest man he had ever seen. At his toil, from morn- 
ing till night, he was full of song and laughter. Yet 
this sunny-hearted being was a slave, maimed, deformed, 
and wearing a chain. How well he illustrated that say- 
ing which bids us, if there is no bright side, to polish up 
the dark one! “Mirth is like the flash of lightning 
that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and glitters 
for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the 
soul, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity.” It 
is cheerfulness that has the staying quality, like the 
sunshine changing a world of gloom into a paradise of 
beauty. 


CHEERFULNESS. 75 


The first prize at a flower-show was taken by a pale, 
sickly little girl, who lived in a close, dark court in the 
east of London. The judges asked how she could grow 
it in such a dingy and sunless place. She replied that 
a little ray of sunlight came into the court; as soon as 
it appeared in the morning, she put her flower beneath 
it, and, as it moved, moved the flower, so that she kept 
it in the sunlight all day. 

“Water, air, and sunshine, the three greatest hygienic 
agents, are free, and within the reach of all.” “Twelve 
years ago,” says Walt Whitman, “I came to Camden to 
die. But every day I went into the country, and bathed 
in the sunshine, lived with the birds and squirrels, and 
played in the water with the fishes. I received my 
health from Nature.” 

“Tt is the unqualified result of all my experience with . 
the sick,” said Florence Nightingale, “that second only to 
their need of fresh air, is their néed of light; that, after 
a close room, what most hurts them is a dark room; and 
that it is not only light, but direct sunshine they want.” 

“Sunlight,” says Dr. L. W. Curtis, in “Health Cul- 
ture,” “has much to do in keeping air in a healthy con- 
dition. No plant can grow in the dark, neither can man 
remain healthy in a dark, ill-ventilated room. When 
the first asylum for the blind was erected in Massachu- 
setts, the committee decided to save expense by not 
having any windows. They reasoned that, as_ the 
patients could not see, there was no need of any light. 
It was built without windows, but ventilation was well 
provided for, and the poor sightless patients were domi- 
ciled in the house. But things did not go well: one 
after another began to sicken, and great languor fell 
upon them; they felt distressed and restless, craving 


76 CHEERFULNESS. 


something, they hardly knew what. After two had died 
and all were ill, the committee decided to have windows. 
The sunlight poured in, and the white faces recovered 
their color; their flagging energies and depressed spirits 
revived, and health was restored.” 

The sun, making all living things to grow, exerts its 
happiest influence in cheering the mind of man and 
making his heart glad, and if a man has sunshine in his 
soul he will go on his way rejoicing; content to look for- 
ward if under a cloud, not bating one jot of heart or 
» hope if for a moment cast down; honoring his occupa- 
tion, whatever it be; rendering even rags respectable by 
the way he wears them; and not only happy himself, 
but giving happiness to others. 

How a man’s face shines when illuminated by a great 
moral motive! and his manner, too, is touched with 
the grace of light. 

“‘ Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches,” 
said Emerson, “and to make knowledge valuable you 
must have the cheerfulness of wisdom.” 

“Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness,” said Car- 
lyle; “altogether past calculation its powers of endur- 
ance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be 
uniformly joyous, —a spirit all sunshine, graceful from 
very gladness, beautiful because bright.” 

“The cheerful man sarries with him perpetually, in 
his presence and personality, an influence that acts upon 
others as summer warmth on the fields and forests. It 
wakes up and calls out the best that is in them. It 
makes them stronger, braver, and happier. Such a man 
makes a little spot of this world a lighter, brighter, 
warmer place for other people to live in. To meet him 
in the morning is to get inspiration which makes all the 


CHEERFULNESS. fe 


day’s struggles and tasks easier. His hearty handshake 
puts a thrill of new vigor into your veins. After talk- 
ing witn him for a few minutes, you feel an exhilaration 
of spirits, a quickening of energy, a renewal of zest and 
interest in living, and are ready for any duty or service.” 

“ Great hearts there are among men,” says Hillis, of 
Plymouth pulpit; “they carry a volume of manhood; 
their presence is sunshine ; their coming changes our cli- 
mate ; they oil the bearings of life; their shadow always 
falls behind them ; they make right living easy. Blessed 
are the happiness-makers: they represent the best forces 
in civilization!” — 

If refined manners reprove us a little for ill-timed 
laughter, a smiling face kindled by a smiling heart is 
always in order. Who can ever forget Emerson’s smile ? 
It was a perpetual benediction upon ‘all who knew him. 
A smile is said to be to the human countenance what 
sunshine is to the landscape. Of a smile is called the 
rainbow of the face. 

“ This is a dark world to many people,” says a sugges- 
tive modern writer, “a world of chills, a world of fogs, 
a world of wet blankets. Nine-tenths of the men we 
meet need encouragement. Your work is so urgent that 
you have no time tostop andspeak to the people, but every 
day you meet scores, perhaps hundreds and thousands of 
persons, upon whom you might have direct and immediate 
influence. ‘How? How?’ you cry out. We answer: 
By the grace of physiognomy. There is nothing more 
catching than a face with a lantern behind it, shining 
clear through. We have no admiration for a face with a 
dry smile, meaning no more than the grin of a false face. 
But a smile written by the hand of God, as an index finger 
or table of centents, to whole volumes of good feeling 


78 CHEERFULNESS. 


within, is a benediction. You say: ‘My face is hard 
and lacking in mobility, and my benignant feelings are 
not observable in the facial proportions.’ We do not 
believe you. Freshness and geniality of the soul are so 
subtle and pervading that they will, at some eye or mouth 
corner, leak out. Set behind your face a feeling of grat- 
itude to God and kindliness toward man, and you will 
every day preach a sermon long as the streets you walk, 
a sermon with as many heads as the number of people 
you meet, and differing from other sermons in the fact 
that the longer it is the better. The reason that there 
are so many sour faces, so many frowning faces, so many 
dull faces, is because men consent to be acrid and petu- 
lant, and stupid. The way to improve your face is toim- 
prove your disposition. Attractiveness of physiognomy 
does not depend on regularity of features. We know 
persons whose brows are shaggy, eyes oblique, noses 
ominously longitudinal, and mouths straggling along 
in unusual and unexpected directions ; and yet they are 
men and women of so much soul that we love to look upon 
them, and their faces are sweet evangels.” 

It was N. P. Willis, I think, who added to the beat- 
itudes — “Blessed are the joy-makers.” “And this is 
why all the world loves little children, who are always 
ready to have ‘a sunshine party,’ — little children 
bubbling over with fun, as a bobolink with song. 

‘‘ How well we remember it all!—the long gone years 
of our own childhood, and the households of joyous ciil- 
dren we have known in later years. Joy-makers are the 
children still,—some of them in unending scenes of 
light. I saw but yesterday this epitaph at Mount 
Auburn, — ‘She was so pleasant’: sunny-hearted in 
life, and now alive forever more in light supernal. 


CHEERFULNESS. 79 


‘ How can we then but rejoice with joy unspeakable, as 
the children of immortality; living habitually above the 
gloom and damps of earth, and leading lives of minis- 
tration; bestowing everywhere sweetness and light, -— 
radiating upon the earth something of the beauty of the 
unseen world.” 

What is a sunny temper but “a talisman more power- 
ful than wealth, more precious than rubies”? What is 
it but ‘an aroma whose fragrance fills the air with 
the odors of Paradise” ? 

“Tam so full of happiness,” said a little child, “ that | 
I could not be any happier unless I could grow.” And 
she bade “ Good morning” to her sweet singing bird, and 
“Good morning” to the sun; then she asked her 
mother’s permission, and softly, reverently, gladly bade 
‘‘ Good morning to God,” — and why should she not ? 

Was it not Goethe who represented a journey that fol- 
lowed the sunshine round the world, forever bathed in 
light? And Longfellow sang: 


‘¢?T is always morning somewhere; and above 
The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.” 


‘¢ The darkness past, we mount the radiant skies, 
And changeless day is ours; we hear the songs 
Of higher spheres, the light divine our eyes 
Behold and sunlight robes of countless throngs 
Who dwell in light; we seek, with joyous quest 
God’s service sweet to wipe all tears away, 

And list we every hour, with eager zest, 

For high command to toils that God has blest: 
So fill we full our endless sunshine day.” 


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